Descending Fire and Other Stories

By John Allman

The author describes his characters as people who, though they earn little money, are not quite working poor--nor can they work without working hard. They do not know quite how to betray or abandon each other. Mostly, they try to love and do not readily shy from duty. Though Allman's narratives run from stark naturalism to the near magical and the out-and-out futuristic, his imagination holds to the everyday--as if to say to his readers: Yes, life is grim, but it is precisely the unbearable that becomes the ground for healing.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811212742
• ISBN13: 9780811212748
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A SKILLFUL FICTION DEBUT

In this, his first book of fiction, poet John Allman paints poignant pictures of working-class New Yorkers. The eight stories present the lives of characters in naturalistic settings as well as a futuristic pursuit, in which a father follows his estranged daughter through the years. Precisely written yet shaded with a poet's pen, the tales are without artifice but complex. In "Courtship," Lucille with her hennaed hair and ample middle-aged figure has left her husband, whom she castigates for having a wandering eye. It seems that Lucille does a little wandering herself before she returns. Home. We meet a night watchman who believes that a co-worker met with foul play, and that he himself may be the next victim. In one of the most smile provoking tales, a psychologist undergoes acupuncture while he broods on his failings and the world's. "Descending Fire & Other Stories" is a skillful and striking fiction debut. - Gail Cooke