{"product_id":"legend-of-a-suicide-stories-isbn-9780061875847","title":"Legend of a Suicide: Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e“The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain.”—\u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In \u003cem\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/em\u003e, his heartbreaking semi-autobiographical debut story-collection, David Vann relates the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the guilt and pain of his father’s suicide. The wild outback of the author’s native Alaska acts as the ideal backdrop for this collage of six stories—a novella and five shorts—and mirrors the author’s own psychological wilderness. From “an important new voice in American literature” (\u003cem\u003eRobert Olen Butler\u003c\/em\u003e, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003cem\u003eA Good Scent from a Strange Mountain\u003c\/em\u003e) comes an unforgettable exploration of the tragic gaps between one boy and his father.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eIn semiautobiographical stories set largely in David Vann's native Alaska, \u003cem\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/em\u003e follows Roy Fenn from his birth on an island at the edge of the Bering Sea to his return thirty years later to confront the turbulent emotions and complex legacy of his father's suicide.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“The most powerful, and pure, piece of writing I have read for a very long time. This book squeezes more life out of the first 100 pages than most books could manage in 1,000, which is pretty impressive, considering it’s a book about death.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRoss Raisin, author of Out Backward\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In his portrayal of a young son’s love for his lost father David Vann has created a stunning work of fiction: surprising, beautiful, and intensely moving.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNadeem Aslam, author of Maps for Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The reportorial relentlessness of Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled.  A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain. ‘A father, after all,’ Vann writes, ‘is a lot for a thing to be.’ A son is also a lot for a thing to be; so is an artist. With \u003ci\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/i\u003e, David Vann proves himself a fine example of both.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTom Bissell, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“With \u003ci\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/i\u003e, Vann looks into the dark and isolated heart of the American soul. It is a devastating journey that is difficult to read but impossible to put down and equally impossible to forget.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJune Sawyers, San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The book is as dark, stormy, and beautiful as the ragged Aleutian coast.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNational Geographic Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A piece of relentless, heartbreaking brilliance that bears comparison with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Weekend Australian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A truly great writer.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIrish Sunday Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“For the imagery alone and for the sentences, the book would be a treasure.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eColm Tóibín, London Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As primal and unforgiving as the Alaskan wilds where it’s set.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBret Anthony Johnston, Men's Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A reckoning. . . . A very difficult book for the very best reasons: it is written with great honesty and journeys unflinchingly into darkness. . . . A message of profound sympathy and sadness, anger and regret, \u003ci\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/i\u003e is the melting away of one man’s past, and the reshaping of tragedy into art.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGreg Schutz, Fiction Writers Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A richly gifted newcomer.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The writing in these stories, informed by both the empirical and the lyrical, is heart-wrenching and gorgeous.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLorrie Moore\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Brilliant . . . Vann’s prose follows the sinews of Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, yet has its own nimble flex.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Vengeful yet sorrowing and empathetic, plausible yet dreamlike, and completely absorbing.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristopher Tayler, The Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“David Vann’s extraordinary and inventive set of fictional variations on his father’s death will surely become an American classic.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A reckoning. . . . A message of profound sympathy and sadness, anger and regret, Legend of a Suicide is the melting away of one man’s past and the reshaping of tragedy into art. . . . [It] journeys unflinchingly into darkness.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGreg Schutz, Fiction Writers Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A powerful new voice has emerged in fiction.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“David Vann’s dark and strange book twists through natural forces and compressed emotions towards an extraordinary and dreamlike conclusion.  One of the most gripping debuts I’ve ever read.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePhilip Hoare, author Leviathan, winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Headlong narrative pacing, a memorable train-wreck father who gives Richard Russo’s characters a run for their money, and a sure, sharp, inviting voice.  So hard to put down that I am thinking of suing David Vann for several hours of lost sleep.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLionel Shriver, author of So Much For That and The Post-Birthday World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“His legend is at once the truest memoir and the purest fiction. . . . Nothing quite like this book has been written before.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlexander Linklater, London Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Extraordinary. . . . Reminiscent of Tobias Wolff, Vann’s prose is as pure as a gulp of water from an Alaskan stream.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The reportorial relentlessness of Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain. - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTom Bissell, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The stories in Legend of a Suicide approach a private mythos, revisiting, reinvestigating, and reinventing one family’s broken past. They also transport us to wild, uncharted places on the Alaskan coast and in the American soul. Throughout, David Vann is a generous, sure-handed guide in some very dangerous territory.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eStewart O'Nan, author of Songs for the Missing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Vann uses startling powers of observation to create strong characters, tense scenes, and genuine surprises.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is one of the most striking fictional debuts in recent memory, and David Vann is an important new voice in American literature.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRobert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As the title suggests, the stories in \u003ci\u003eLegend of a Suicide\u003c\/i\u003e approach a private mythos, revisiting, reinvestigating and reinventing one family’s broken past.  They also transport us to wild, uncharted places on the Alaskan coast and in the American soul.  Throughout, David Vann is a generous, surehanded guide in some very dangerous territory.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eStewart O'Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Snow Angels: A Novel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The characters in these stories are extreme in their isolation from one another, whether they come together in a howling wind or in the comforts of a warm kitchen. Here is suicide, infidelity, madness; here are people whose skewed optimism about the next love affair, the next career, the next homestead, proves deadly. . . . Memory, affection for place, the mangled ways we manage to express the love we feel—David Vann is unafraid of the weight and the complication of these things. He is emboldened in these stories to fall headlong into the disorienting wilderness of the human heart and mind.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNoy Holland, Gracy Paley Prize Jury remarks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘This is my ‘One to watch’. . . . It’s stunning, beautifully written, with genuine surprises and a complexity which makes you retrace your steps, wonder what really happened and ponder over the whole scenario for days. I loved it. It’s Richard Yates, Annie Proulx territory, and highly recommended.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller (UK)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44887934140645,"sku":"NP9780061875847","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780061875847.jpg?v=1730227773","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/legend-of-a-suicide-stories-isbn-9780061875847","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}