The Lifeguard: Stories

By Mary Morris and Mary McGarry Morris

Book Overview

The Lifeguard is a powerful collection of ten short stories that shows Mary Morris's great sensitivity to men and women at moments of turbulence, uncertainty, and crisis.

Morris's short story collection combines her consummate craft as a storyteller with her gift for dramatic travel writing. In the title story, a teenage lifeguard sees his mystique among the girls on the beach dissolve in a panicked moment when he cannot save a child. In "The Glass-Bottom Boat," a mother on her first trip abroad learns about trust from a solicitous stranger.

"A superb collection . . . A magnificent writer." --The Washington Post Book World

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312186940
• ISBN13: 9780312186944
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 3 years and up
• Grade Range: Preschool and higher

Customer Reviews

A Good Read

This was an interesting book, from the cover and title I thought that the book would deal more with lifeguarding. I am an Aquatics Manager and have been in aquatics for 10yrs. I found the book itself very interesting. It is a book that should be read by many more people.

An excellent short-story collection

Contrary to the pretentious New York Times review that's quoted above, this is a very moving, very artful collection of short stories. Morris is able, without irony or gimmickry, to sweep the reader into the tales of her protagonists. What most of these stories deal with are the subtle transformations that occur in people as events and time impact them. She doesn't spell out the way her tales resolve themselves because she doesn't have to; her characters own actions (or, in some cases, inactions) make the conclusions very apparent to the reader even when nothing is bluntly stated. Mary Morris is a fine teller of stories and this collection is worth reading cover to cover.