The Start of Something: The Selected Stories of Stuart Dybek

(Paperback)

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'One of the most soulful writers in America, and a national treasure' George Saunders From a master of the short story, this is a beguiling collection of nineteen tales about growing up, wising up and falling in love 'One of the most soulful writers in America, and a national treasure' George Saunders Nineteen tales of growing up, wising up, and falling in love, spanning more than three decades of prize-winning work by a North American master of the short story The Start of Something is a visionary work following the lovelorn beatniks, hard-boiled gangsters and jaded academics of America, journeying through a haze of drugs, dreams and lucid memory. Seductive and freewheeling, each story glittering with the found poetry of the street, this is the definitive introduction to a life's work by a writer who has re-enchanted short fiction with every new collection.

Reviews

One of the most soulful writers in America, and a national treasure -- George Saunders
A poet of the short story, Stuart Dybek is a strange and exceptional talent Impressive. -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times *
[Dybeks stories] are strikingly with-it, distinctly 21st century in their shape and method Dybek has also always stirred understated, powerfully realized and ravishingly beautiful images almost casually into his work. -- Kate Clanchy * Guardian *
[The Start of Something is] worth leaping on. -- Hephzibah Anderson * Observer *
A great deal of the art of the short story is to do with exits and entrances [Dybek] has a knack for getting both things right Dybek is and this he certainly has in common with Ishiguro a writer doing completely his own thing. -- Sam Leith * Financial Times *

Author Bio

Described by the Atlantic as 'one of America's living masters of the short story', Stuart Dybek has been accoladed on all fronts, receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation, a PEN/Malamud Prize, a Lannan Award, a Whiting Writers Award, and four O. Henry Prizes. His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared widely in journals such as Harper's, Poetry, Tin House, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker.