Break it Down: Stories

New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 1986. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. First Edition; First Printing, so stated. Near Fine in Near Fine DJ: The Book shows a tiny dot of soil at the bottom edge of the front panel; a hint of crimp to the heel of the backstrip; a mild nudge to the lower rear corner tip; else flawless; binding remains square and secure; the text is clean. Free of any creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome, nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing minor, unobtrusive imperfections. Bright and clean. The DJ shows a tiny coffee-like stain at the bottom edge of the front panel; a tiny dot of stain at the upper front 'hinge'; else flawless; the price is unclipped; mylar-protected. Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (8.5 x 5.85 x 0.85 inches) . Language: English. Weight: 13 ounces. Hardback with DJ. Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several translations of French literary classics, including Swann's Way and Madame Bovary. Davis has been described as "the master of a literary form largely of her own invention." Some of her "stories" are only one or two sentences. Davis has compared these works to skyscrapers in the sense that they are surrounded by an imposing blank expanse. While Lydia Davis did not invent flash fiction ... She is far and away its most eminent contemporary practitioner". Her "distinctive voice has never been easy to fit into conventional categories", writes Kasia Boddy in the Columbia Companion to the 21st Century Short Story, "her parables are most successful when they examine the problems of communication between men and women, and the strategies each uses to interpret the other's words and actions." Of contemporary authors, only Davis, Stuart Dybek, and Alice Fulton share the distinction of appearing in both The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Poetry. In October 2003, Davis received a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and was a distinguished speaker at the 2004 & NOW Festival at the University of Notre Dame. Davis was the winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. The Man Booker Prize committee described her work as having "the brevity and precision of poetry". The judging panel chair Christopher Ricks commented, "There is vigilance to her stories, and great imaginative attention. Vigilance as how to realise things down to the very word or syllable; vigilance as to everybody's impure motives and illusions of feeling." She is widely considered "one of the most original minds in American fiction today." Davis married Paul Auster in 1974, with whom she had a son. Auster and Davis later divorced; Davis is now married to the artist Alan Cote, with whom she has another son. She is a professor of creative writing at the University at Albany, SUNY and was a Lillian Vernon Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University in 2012. This is short fiction by a rare voice. Lots of writers have done very short fiction, lots have experimented with style, few get it right like Lydia Davis. She strips the conventions of fiction down to the barest essentials, often speaking from a removed perspective. She adds just enough strokes of imagery, however, to warm it up and allow the reader to enjoy a rich experience. Davis is in total control: her sentences are like little gilt-wrapped presents that explode when opened. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 177 pages. pages .