Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards (Books That Changed the World)
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- Synopsis
- ”Gloriously imaginative and utterly hypnotizing short stories” inspired by vintage twentieth-century postcards, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Booklist, starred review).For many years, author Robert Olen Butler has collected picture postcards from the early twentieth century—not so much for the pictures on the fronts but for the messages written on the backs, little bits of the captured souls of people long since passed away. Using these brief messages of real people from another age, Butler here creates fully imagined stories that speak to the universal human condition. In “Up by Heart,” a Tennessee miner is called upon to become a preacher, and then asked to complete an altogether more sinister task. In “The Ironworkers’ Hayride,” a young man named Milton embarks on a romantic adventure with a girl with a wooden leg. From the deeply moving “Carl and I,” in which a young wife writes a postcard in reply to a card from her husband who is dying of tuberculosis, to the eerily familiar “The One in White,” in which a newspaper reporter covers an incident of American military adventurism in a foreign land, these short stories are intimate and fascinating glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary age.“A wonderful collection.”—The Atlantic Monthly
- Copyright:
- 2004
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 288 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9781555846206
- Publisher:
- Grove Atlantic
- Date of Addition:
- 09/16/23
- Copyrighted By:
- Robert Olen Butler
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- History, Literature and Fiction
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.