Stygo

by Laura Hendrie

Book Overview

Winner 1995 American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award. Winner 1995 Mountains and Plains Regional Book Award Finalist 1995 PEN/Hemingway Foundation First Fiction Award Stygo is the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684801116
• ISBN13: 9780684801117
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A taste of dust

I picked up this book when I noticed a posistive testimonial by Annie Proulx. Laura Hendrie dishes up stark tales of a miniscule, single-industry (sugar beets) Colorado town where dust and snow blow alternately, and people have little to do outside of work besides observe each other and play off their neighbors' mistakes. The book's structure is nine separate but related tales, each building on characters from a previous story. The grittiness of the high plains is palpable in the relentless but subtle style Hendrie uses to convey hard living by people on the fringe of society beyond Stygo. One of these people, Essie Angel, decides she never wants to see any more than the limited view from Stygo after she gets a taste of the making of TV talk shows in the aftermath of her 19-year-old brother's conviction for murder. Stygo is populated with children who stay under furniture or porches and steal candy compulsively. Depressing? Yes, but usefully so -- I am glad to peek safely into the flip points of view of small town life this book gave me, without having to live there. Publishers MacMurray & Beck contributed to a very beautiful and thoughtful presentation with illustrations at the beginning of each story, repeated individually throughout the "chapter."

Engaging and fascinating

This is a WONDERFUL book - amazing insight into the human condition. Everyone should read this!