Believers: A Novella and Stories

by Charles Baxter

Book Overview

From the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune) With his five previous books of fiction, Charles Baxter established... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679442677
• ISBN13: 9780679442677
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Surprising! Fresh and Real

Charles Baxter's characters lure you into their real worlds with memories, familiar problems, and sudden laughter. Be prepared to think about it, because you will not forget the people you meet in Baxter's stories.Wonderful!

Luminous and funny -- this is fiction at its finest!

Having read A Feast of Love, I was compelled to read another Charles Baxter book. This book is quite funny and touching -- Baxter has the ability to move people's hearts with his unique language and precise coming timing. The short stories are great; my favorites are "Reincarnation," "The Next Building I Plan to Bomb" and "The Cures for Love." These stories are extremely funny and thought provoking at the same time.Believers, like The Feast of Love, has a timeless quality that establishes Baxter as one of our most gifted fiction writers of today. I strongly recommend this book.

Delightful and profoundly moving,

the stories in this book are meant to be savored. Every character and event is deeply engaging and somehow exactly right. There's something on every page which will surprise or amaze you and make you have an uncanny feeling that the author is voicing your next thought. Chances are you will recognize a bit of yourself or someone you know in each of his characters. Reading "Believers" or any of Charles Baxter's books is a true pleasure; once discovered, they are sure to be among your favorites.

Best of Baxter

Until a long-awaited follow-up proves me wrong, "Believers" is Charles Baxter's finest collection of short fiction. Many writers choose similar themes as Baxter -- midwestern life, midlife romance, middle-distance observation -- but none, in my reading, handle the short fiction form with such aplomb and dexterity, making it look easy. The novella in this collection that gives it its name is outstanding, insofar as it grapples with such enormous themes of trust, belief and the mystery of people in the number of pages it does. Until we get another novel or short fiction collection from C. Baxter, there is the rereading of these stories, a thoroughly enjoyable and edifying experience.

An American Master Outdoes Himself

What makes Charles Baxter's stories beautiful, beyond the understated brilliance of the words he finds to tell them, is the deep respect and sympathy he obviously feels for his characters. Reading, you enter the minds of the most random people--a small-town English teacher, a middle-aged housewife with growing doubts about her husband's secrets, a man who owes his life to the failure of his father, a priest, to keep his vow of chastity. Each character is revealed in all his or her complexity and humanity, with absolute fidelity: there is no patronizing moral judgment or reducing people to "types," just an understanding sadness at people's failings and a quiet admiration where admiration is due. One of the most unexpected and satisfying things about his writing is how funny his stories can be--they've made me laugh out loud, but even Baxter's highly developed sense of the absurd never overwhelms the underlying feeling of a story. I love Charles Baxter's writing, and for me, Believers is the best he's done so far.