| Title | : | All the Comfort Sin Can Provide |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1625570228 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781625570222 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 175 |
| Publication | : | Published January 1, 2021 |
Taking us from hot Arizona highways to cold Iowa hotel rooms, from the freedoms of the backwoods of New Mexico to the damnations of slick New York City law firms, Faulkner creates a shard-sharp mosaic of desire that careens off the page—honest, cutting, and wise.
PRAISE
Somewhere between sinister and gleeful the characters in Grant Faulkner’s story collection All the Comfort Sin Can Provide blow open pleasure—guilty pleasure, unapologetic pleasure, accidental pleasure, repressed pleasure. Really, at the heart of all identity is the reach for pleasure, and then what actually comes, all those moments of slippage where we do the wrong thing, take a ridiculous risk, double down on failure, land in a forsaken place, slip the mainstream of things enough to change and become. These characters exude beauty from their flaws. These stories are lit.
–Lidia Yuknavitch
Full of bad behavior and a ferocious desire for escape, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide is a catalog of longing. Faulkner’s arresting characters broadcast their worst decisions from grimy motel rooms, greasy kitchens, and sprawling American highways, each of them hellbent on the promise of something better.”
–Kimberly King Parsons
All the Comfort Sin Can Provide delivers on the promise of Grant Faulkner’s daring debut with a follow-up collection of stories that excavates possibility, salvation, and the deceptive comforts one finds in so many pleasures.
–Adam Johnson
All the Comfort Sin Can Provide Reviews
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Buzzed and excited is how I finished up, reading these stories and microfictions. They took me back to days when I was an avid short story reader, a habit I fell out of for a long time. That's not to say these stories are old fashioned, though. Quite the opposite. These reminded me of some of my favorite short-story authors--Barry Hannah, Richard Ford and especially Lucia Berlin--but with a fresh take and style that is contemporary. These characters have bodies, for example. Yay! The writing is careful, but never fussy. That care is a gift to the reader, because while there touches throughout where the language itself is a pleasure, it doesn't call attention to itself to the detriment of the people, their stories. It's a bit like Lydia Davis (my gateway drug back to the short story, about five years ago) in that respect. For me, the setting is a large part of the appeal. I enjoy the general Westernness of the book--mountain West, prairie West, coastal West. Especially the Tucson stories, although that could be down to "Cooking," which I found quite funny and satisfying for reasons I won't divulge here and are hard to describe anyway. I could go on and on, and already have, but I'll just say I came out of the book with a sigh of happiness, thinking, well done!
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This remarkable collection takes a lot of structural and thematic risks, beginning as it does with a story made out of fragments, containing a number of 100-word stories, and including pieces that deal with unforgivable acts (for instance, in Mr. American where the protagonists unthinkingly, not aware of the blind spots of his own privilege, leaves a woman on a side of the road, leading to her death). These stories have been written over the period of thirty years and across large geographies of this country, and the book invites the reader on a journey that involves a lot of risks and though there's no easy platitudes here about life and how to live it well, it does offer companionship to those of us muddling through and making a ton of mistakes on the way. The title comes from the final piece, a 100-word story that stages a deathbed monologue delivered by a father to his son.
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"Memories are paintings that are endlessly repainted, she thought. Tender moments turn into swords, bombs."
Faulkner's latest story collection is a bold look into the worst of our sins. He does so with profound examinations of such moments as quoted above, moments that erupt out of our greatest needs, for better or worse, as his characters search for tenderness in ways that result in being torched or destroyed by their actions and deeds. Few escape, few triumph, but they are real and "never just one thing" or who they are "supposed" to be. Deeply perceptive, carefully crafted, and unflinchingly raw. -
This collection inspired and provoked me, as a writer and perhaps even more so as a fellow "observer" of human nature. Grant Faulkner's descriptions of places and people, sometimes building a tale from the smallest glimpse of a stranger or a location, piqued curiosity and empathy.
And these stories ponder the benefits and pitfalls of expectation--expectations fulfilled as well as stifled. Reading All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, both the flash fiction and the longer stories moved me and opened me in unexpected ways. Hence the five stars! -
This is an amazing collection of short stories. It was a rollercoaster ride of different times and places. Some are very thought provoking and warrant a second read; it's amazing how a second read brings forth more information or maybe the same but with a different thought process!!! I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves a good rather twisted read.
I did win this book through Goodreads and would like to thank Black Lawrence Press and Grant Faulkner for a thoroughly great read. -
I enjoyed this collection of raw, emotionally provocative stories.
Thank you to Goodreads for the book!
