Fast Lanes

By Jayne Anne Phillips

Book Overview

Jayne Anne Phillips has always been a master of portraiture, both in her widely acclaimed novels and in her short fiction. The stories in Fast Lanes demonstrated the breadth of her talent in a tour de force of voices, offering elegantly rendered views into the lives of characters torn between the liberation of detachment and the desire to connect. Three stories are collected in this edition for the first time: in "Alma," and adolescent daughter is made the confidante of her lonely mother; "Counting" traces the history of a dommed love affair; and "Callie" evokes memories of the haunting death of a child in 1920's West Virginia. Along with the original seven stories from Fast Lanes--each told in extraordinary first person narratives that have been hailed by critics as virtuoso performances--these incandescent portraits offer windows into the lives of an entire generation of Americans, demonstrating again and again why Jayne Anne Phillips remains one of our most powerful writers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525245154
• ISBN13: 9780525245155
• Release Date: April 1987
• Publisher: E. P. Dutton/Seymour Lawrence
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Height of her powers

This, for me, still stands as Jayne Anne Phillips finest and most accomplished achievement. Ravishing use of language which never loses sight of the essential humanity of her characters. Not to play favorites, but the stories here that speak most eloquently to me are the two chapters that were excised from her novel MACHINE DREAMS and reworked -- BLUE MOON and BESS. Exquisite.