The Truly Needy And Other Stories

by Lucy Honig

Book Overview

These nine stories are teeming with people on the margins, where destitute New Yorkers and determined immigrants are as much at the mercy of social services, media attention, opportunistic politicians, and "quality-of-life" campaigns as they are prey to grinding poverty, dangerous streets, and their own haunting memories. Delving into Lucy Honig's fiction, one is willingly drawn into an intimacy with these resilient, but flawed characters-among...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822957817
• ISBN13: 9780822957812
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Takes you places you've never been -- a fine collection

A lovely and troubling collection of stories. Kirkus seems bothered by the fact that in many of the stories, there is no tidy resolution -- but isn't that a lot more like real life? (Kirkus probably reads too many books...) In this collection you can really get to know some of the people who you might recognize on the street, or who you already know in passing -- and thus for anyone who is a genuine student of human nature and the human condition, this is a deeply satisfying collection. I had the pleasure of reading Honig's novel Picking Up so was pleased to see that she had published another book and won another prize -- Picking Up, also a prizewinner, is worthy of much wider dissemination and maybe now it will get a second chance.

Provocative stories by a serious, gifted writer

What a pleasure it is to read the stories that make up Lucy Honig's superb collection. The Truly Needy is the work of a serious, gifted writer who pulls no punches as she takes us into the lives of difficult people driven to define themselves in the American urban landscape. The prose is luminous, the structure tight, and the characters compelling. Check out this book for a provocative and satisfying read.