Barthelme, Frederick

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bill in tennessee
"Trip" is a trip!
Bold leap with new work.

trip
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: powerHouse Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Nature of Photographs

ASIN: 1576870510

Book Description

trip is celebrated Grapevine photographer Susan Lipper and distinctive prose stylist Frederick Barthelmes new, conceptually ambitious artists book: an assembled narrative of a fictional road trip in America, destination and starting point unknown. Adrift.

The date is the present, but only slightly so. The viewer is cast without aid amongst snatches of text and vernacular objects, staged or found, that render the landscape neither familiar nor foreign. Semiotic interplay is introduced with seemingly objective signs and symbols, readable in a traditional sense, yetwhat meanings do they serve here?

Re-appropriating the documentary tradition of road photography, Lipper and Barthelmes "trip" is a new American narrative, perfectly suited for our hyper-mediating times, and is by turns arcanely sophisticated, solipsistically funny, resolutely urbane, and grammatically hokey. An accessible joyride on many levels, trip is destined to become a landmark photography book.

trip will be the subject of an exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art in November, 1999.

Customer Reviews:

bill in tennessee.......2000-04-11

susan can make formica disquieting. Many photographers have been on the road, few have taken a picture and left it hanging, lighter than air and about to break and drop to the floor under the weight of a trip, like Ms Lipper has. And there is a book of these wonderful, thoughtful photographs.

"Trip" is a trip!.......2000-02-15

Do not buy this book looking for familiar signs of travel or a destination. The "trip" you, the viewer, embark upon is not the sort which gets you "there". Rather it is an experience akin to the wakening one might have following a long, vacant stare and realizing that, despite your own logic or familiarity with the world, the most common object has the potential for revealing puzzling, but significant, meaning.

Through the use of her camera's frame and lens Lipper evokes/creates/invents realities that force unanswered questions and pose mystery. Frederick Barthelme's fiction hauntingly echoes the quality of dislocation permeated in the photographs. Together the text and photographs create an ambitious concept of contemporary existence.

"Trip" is a beautiful, smart, funny and disturbing book.

Bold leap with new work........1999-12-17

Susan Lipper has taken a bold leap in presenting a body of work which touches on the real, imagined, mundane and the bizarre. A lonely trip of images which are echoed by the strange and brilliant narrative by Frederick Barthelme. Trip is a provocative voyage, part fictional, part reality through a maze of back roads, bayous, motels and various unidentified locales. The resultant work is one which alternately confuses and enlightens. Is this work theater, documentary, fantasy, dream, nightmare or some sad reality? Probably a little of each. Trip is a huge departure from Lipper's previous book "Grapevine" and I applaud her courageous step towards the new and unknown. I recommend this unique book.

Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss

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A must read!!!
Of Nepotism and Naivete
A story of loss
Double Down
Good story poorly told

Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss
Frederick and Steven Barthelme
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Craving Brain: A bold new approach to breaking free from *drug addiction *overeating *alcoholism *gambling

ASIN: 0156010704

Book Description

Double Down is a true story, a terrifying roller-coaster ride deep into the heart of two men, and into the world of floating Gulf Coast casinos. When both of their parents died within a short time of each other, the writers Frederick and Steven Barthelme, both professors of English in Mississippi, inherited a goodly sum of money. What followed was a binge during which they gambled away their entire fortune-and more. And then, in a cruel twist of fate, they were charged with cheating at the tables.

Told with a mixture of sadness and wry humor, and with a compelling look at the physical aura of gambling-the feel of the cards, the smell of the crowd, the sounds of the tables-Double Down is a reflection on the lure of challenging the odds, the attraction of stepping into the void. A cautionary tale (the brothers were eventually exonerated), it is a book that, once read, will never be forgotten.

Customer Reviews:

A must read!!!.......2004-10-09

Excellent! A wonderfully entertaining story, beautifully told. The only problem, I wish it had gone another 100 pages! This is one of those stories you wish someone would develop into a screenplay for a movie!
Final thoughts: BUY THIS BOOK! You wont be disappointed!

Of Nepotism and Naivete.......2004-06-06

First, the obvious: neither Barthelme brother would have cushy college-teaching jobs had not their eldest brother, Donald, been a trendy post-modernist icon. The younger brother, Steven B., has managed to publish exactly one (1) book of short stories; Rick, the larger, plumper one, has some sort of gossamer reputation among those who like trailer-park fiction. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of better writers with better qualifications who would kill and maim with gleeful abandon for jobs at Southern Mississippi -- and who would devote themselves to those jobs, and to their students, rather than run off two or three times a week to squander Daddy's money at the blackjack tables [disclaimer: the undersigned thinks she is one of those "better writers"]. That said, this slender volume does indeed fascinate: I read it straight through in five hours, and so will most readers of a literary bent. The brothers B. have in fact done me a service, one years of shrink visits and antidepressants have failed to do -- in one stroke, they have made me glad, glad, glad that I abandoned the academy, failed to obtain a Ph.D., and find myself teaching high school English thirty years after my Iowa fiction MFA. Theirs is a cautionary tale, of what may happen to smart people with minimal reality contact and few, if any, day-to-day responsibilities. The cavernous lack of common-sense knowledge they display in their forays to the Gulf Coast casinos would be inconceivable to anyone who's punched a clock or handled an insurance claim. They are actually surprised to find that casinos have a corporate identity! Gee, they thought those people were their friends ... gahh! As for the dead father they apparently despised, I felt sorry for D. Barthelme Sr. His hard work, his habits of deep thinking and attention to detail, become monstrosities in the ham-hands of his two youngest sons, who in fifty-plus years on this planet have not managed to obtain perspective one. The book is good -- the descriptions of gambling's intoxications, the minute processing of each foolish and silly and self-deluding thought as it arises, are executed with consummate skill -- and yet one can't help concluding, as the memoir shrinks down upon itself into a puddle of anticlimax, that six months or so in prison would have been good for these men, taught them a painful life-lesson or two. Crucial to an understanding of the brothers' plight is the fact that neither Barthelme bothered to have children, thus giving themselves the right to be babies forever. They are not so much perpetual adolescents as they are pre-pubescent (wife and girlfriend notwithstanding), mired forever in Fiftiesland where, if you want to be a cowboy, you just put on the hat and yell, "Bang-bang!" They are not intellectual -- or accomplished -- enough for the ivory-tower defense they so quickly assume; what they are, are second- and third-tier journeymen blessed with a famous name and a glib ability to sling the relativist Crisco. While one may end up wishing Barthelme Sr., who unlike his sons appeared to be able to distinguish right from wrong, had willed his inheritance somewhere else, this reviewer is grateful for the folly of his heirs. A job at Southern Mississippi may be gravy, but that thin gruel isn't nourishing. Real life is the real meat.

A story of loss.......2004-06-02

Double Down is a terrific book about loss. Frederick and Steve Barthelme are brothers who moved to Mississippi to become college professors. They come from a very close knit family, and when it is unwoven from the death of their Mother and Father, a gambling addiction is triggered. Steve and Frederick become regulars at The Grand, a local casino, and they start going at least once a week and spending the whole night there all the way into early morning. After blowing all of their inheritance from their parents, they are acussed of cheating. They were indicted and charged with a felony, and forever kicked out of their favorite casino. This didn't stop their gambling addiction, however it did slow it down. They make fewer trips, to another casino and are less intense gamblers.

The book was well written and for the most part it kept my attention. Some parts they seemed to ramble off about their parents and family, and it gets slow. The accounts of their gambling binges keep you wanting more. They know they should stop, but keep throwing their money in anyway. I recommend this to everyone who is intrested in gambling.

Double Down.......2004-05-18

Double Down, a book about two brothers who discover the world of gambling, has the suspense and drama needed for a good gambling story. The two brothers, who happen to be respectable college professors, move down South to Mississippi to be around their parents. The family, which has drifted apart through the years, has come together for their parent's final years. Soon after their dad die's, the inheritance money starts burning a hole in the brother's pockets. Riverboat gambling puts out the fire. The wild ride lasts for two years, until the Casino accuses them of cheating. Through it all, the brother's learn about themselves, family, and why people do the things they do.

Good story poorly told.......2004-03-13

An interesting book for anyone who's ever been addicted, especially to gambling. This work has a major weakness, the lack of an ending, satisfactory or otherwise. The idea that gambling addicts could spend as much time at the casinos as they say they did and not shortchange their employer and students, doesn't ring true. Also, there is no indication that either brother kept a detailed diary during their gambling sprees. The details, amounts, conversations, they supposedly recall for the book are suspect. Still, Double Down is a decent read. The brothers, however, were about the easiest pickings ever to enter a den of gambling. They learned surprisingly little about how to gamble. There is a bookshelf full of better books on the gambling life than this one. For example,Anthony Holden's Big Deal, Andy Bellin's Poker Nation, Jesse May's Shut Up and Deal, Ben Mezrich's Bring Down the House.

The Law of Averages: New and Selected Stories

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Stories About Nothing?
Minimalist anthology.
Hyperrealistic Chekov
Knows how to leave you wondering
Splendid stories about ordinary people--

The Law of Averages: New and Selected Stories
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Moon Deluxe (Barthelme, Frederick)
The Best American Short Stories 2005 (The Best American Series)

ASIN: 1582431574

Book Description

A New York Times Notable Book for 2000

The Law of Averages collects twenty-nine stories that rattle around in the fertile field of ordinary life in America; they embrace the plain, the drab, and the dull with the same warmth as the miraculous and exquisite. These sharp and touching stories strike at the heart of our time and reveal and reflect the sometimes funny, often bizarre details that routinely disrupt the delicate balance of our lives. This is a collection of ordinary, complex pleasures.

Customer Reviews:

Stories About Nothing?.......2004-02-01

These are basically stories about nothing. Not even stories really. More like observations or reports told by a loving correspondent. The author rather skillfully (or sneakily) managed to keep this sottish reader's interest even though I knew the stories weren't going anywhere. Greatness? No. Clever and well told nothingness? You betcha! An opinion: the author has little imagination, but is a very skilled storyteller. I'm not certain whether to be annoyed or impressed.

Minimalist anthology........2003-12-21

I haven't read any of Barthelme's novels, but have read some of his essays in the past. After reading this collection of stories, I keep thinking about a line of his (which I'm sure I'm misremembering)-- something about the best part of writing fiction being the collaboration with the reader. That's a line that can seem like a throwaway until you read Barthelme's stories. These are stories that are only robust when I as reader give them my own history to put into context and revisit.

Unfortunately, the collection was uneven to my eye. There are books of short stories which when grouped together still read like a book. This one doesn't-- it reads like an anthology. Several of the stories are so close in mood and characters that they read like versions of each other and several characters literally reappear in what clearly aren't linked stories-- a distraction when you encounter them a second time.

Barthelme is often described as an unapologetic minimalist, and it was great to read his beautifully chiselled and stripped-down prose.

You see the risk of this minimalism in some of the stories that don't quite work. All we have of the characters are their surfaces and sometimes it seems like the story leaves them at 'quirky', without giving it any depth. But when the stories work well (for instance, in the amazing story "Driver") then they work very powerfully indeed.

Hyperrealistic Chekov.......2003-08-11

Although seemingly simply written, these are some of the most sophisticated stories I have ever read. Barthelme is so even tempered, so subtly loving, and so good at fixing upon key details that bring a scene to life that his work is both a joy to read and a reward to study. His subject, the "New South," with its strip malls and pierced adolescents, is much less differentiated than Faulkner's, and much less expansive than Hemingway's grandiose global stage of writerly operations. Yet Barthelme's prose is more than up to the task of rendering this less differentiated south, and his writerly consciousness, on covert display in these finely wrought works of art whose mundane subject matter belies their grandeur, exhibits a cryptic machismo beyond Hemingway's would be all-inclusive ken. Barthelme also shines in comparison to the gargantuan novels and experiments in verbal excess now routinely turned out by the graduates of MFA programs, and predictably praised on book jackets, in what, splashing ink rather than light, amount to acts of mercantile onanism by literate but not literary employees of publishing conglomerates who mistake grandiloquence for greatness, which they imagine they can manufacture. I am guessing, but Barthelme may have gained an advantage at the beginning of his story writing career because he wanted to distinguish himself (as detailed in the Introduction) from his older brother Donald Barthelme, whose literary experiments, though widely admired, inspired him to gravitate towards a different aesthetic. The result, in its mature form, on display here is not only an aesthetic, but a human triumph: the stories, as apparently the man, never overreach and, like most great art, conceal difficult, highly wrought craft in t seemingly effortless compositions. The novel has been defined as "a mirror taken on the road." Not everyone will identify with the hyperrealistic images captured (the protagonists' recurring fetish for pretty television newscasters comes to mind), but anyone interested in art must admire the power and precision of these stories' narrative lens.

Knows how to leave you wondering.......2003-05-22

FB's style in these stories is mainly to set you up with a scene and characters (which he brings to life fairly easily and quickly) and then end the story right on the brink of when something's going to happen.. or not happen.
In many of these stories, the sexual frustration between characters is leaping off the page; just when you think something will break, it gets even more intense. Most of the stories involve a male and female as the main chars.
A handful of stories are written in 2nd person, which is extremely difficult to pull off. FB does an okay job of it, but doesn't convince me.
I enjoyed the collection and will definitely consider other works by him.

Splendid stories about ordinary people--.......2002-05-07

So many books are filled with lousy, hothouse prose, so many are overwritten or underwritten, or have no ideas other than the ideas you might hear on any newscast on MSNBC. Even books that get a lot of press seem sort of mundane and off-the-rack when compared with Barthelme's. He sees the world we live in from an odd angle, seems to like the really plain stuff that's always going on around us, and in his hands it tends to take on a magical glow. How he does it I don't quite know. Maybe it's just good writing, maybe it's the particular ideas that he elects to write about, maybe it's finding the slightly miraculous in the utterly ordinary. Anyway, it's a pleasure to read stories that have a different slant. I like the story where the meat slides down the counter, and the one where they go to the Home Depot, and the one where the girl writes her number on his arm, and the one where the big strange guy gets to drive the car. I like the crazy story about the runaway girl in the back and the story called Ed Works in which almost nothing happens. These characters have a realness about them that so much fiction misses--the people are just going though their lives and stuff is happening to them and they're reacting and sometimes it gets out of hand or there's a big moment that's really lovely and they don't miss the moment, but they don't make a religion out of it either. And best of all, these stories don't preach. That's rare these days.

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One of the Greater Writers of American Literature
Delightful, funny, wise, wonderful stories

Moon Deluxe (Barthelme, Frederick)
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0802134378

Customer Reviews:

One of the Greater Writers of American Literature.......2005-06-29

A timeless, heartfelt collection of stories, Moon Deluxe is both entertaining for warm hearts and hopeful for cold. The stories end so fast that you don't have time to draw judgement, but you can only imagine what happens next, if you please. Every page has the ability to make you wonder about the reccesses of society, emotions, experience, hardships, and evenn the most casual of circumstances. It also carries with it a very introverted aspect of the human psyche as well, exploring the level of carelessness we profess about our own lives, and above all, the mortal coil and what lies beyond that linear perspective. Do we just birth and die, or, is there more to life? You never know what you're going to happen upon the next page -- that's the monument that Frederick Barthelme has built up upon the pages of the New Yorker, the point of reference for Moon Deluxe. It's a fascinating group of tales that will haunt you until you sleep, carry on with you until you die in your subconscious. You would be wise to not ever let go of such a treasurable book. If your shtick is the bright lights burning on a cool day or night, the urban getaway of a faux-liberal landscape of most of these stories, you'll fit right in with the etherealistic feel of every environment of each story, whether you're forced into a person's view or watching from the sidelines, the workings of a travelling mythos.

Delightful, funny, wise, wonderful stories.......1998-07-05

Here's a writer whose style and substance are perfectly matched. While some of the plots will make you laugh out loud, the characters are poignant. Highly recommended.

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A Keeper from Frederick Barthelme

The Brothers
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Counterpoint Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1582431302

Book Description

A dark, touching comedy about love, libido, and the complicated bond that brothers sometimes share.

After Del Tribute almost sleeps with his brother's sexually edgy wife, The Brothers sets out to trace and detail the intricate pattern of consequences of this near indiscretion. Del and Bud, two brothers whose middle-aged adolescent antics have a way of messing up each other's lives, both confront the bittersweet comfort of having too many choices. In a remarkable performance that extends the territory of Barthelme's fiction, the love and desire of these brothers is laid open, explored, and experienced.

Customer Reviews:

A Keeper from Frederick Barthelme.......2005-05-31

"They left the hotel at three the next afternoon. Jen was driving, Bud and Margaret were in the back. They took a turn bt the beach long enough for a last look, then slipped back up to I-10 and headed west toward Mobile. They were riding alongside an eighteen-wheel truck that had big lemons and limes painted on its side. The traffic was surprisingly heavy, Jen pulled in behind the truck and hit the cruise control. "I'm just following this guy," she said. "Wherever he goes." (128)

This paragraph from half way through the novel serves as a good example of the forward momentum of Frederick Barthelme's narrative. Perhaps `momentum' isn't the right word, as the direction hardly seems driven by forces originating in the past. I can't think of a novel in which past, certainly fate, plays so small a role. Does Fate exist in Barthelme's cosmos? Not much would seem to be more ripe for a depiction of destiny working its strange power than the relationship between brothers (inviting as it can a veritable mess of power struggles and envy, not to mention mythic analogies reaching into the archaic past), and yet Del and Bud here experience less of this than one would have thought dramatically interesting, for all their problems. Actually, `The Brothers', really isn't all that dramatically interesting, but what is compelling is one of the most detailed descriptions of the `new South' that out-Percys Percy, where Gas-mart attendants have bellies the size of cash registers and Kmart and Audio Instinct are more prevalent than plantations.

`The Brothers' is actually a little lopsided as titles go, as all the action is centered around Del, who has just moved to Biloxi following a divorce that took place just before the novel begins. Considering the conflict that is one of the main threads of the novel (even `thread' seems too substantial), Del and Bud seem anxious to help one another. Bud tries to get Del a more respectable job at his community college. Del tries to help Bud out with his mood swings. They act, not to put to fine a point on it, brotherly.

If anything, the friction between Del and the other characters exist as a series of foils for the central relationship between the brothers, which is mysterious enough to resist an easy description of conflict, if not conflict itself. About two thirds of the way through the novel there is a minor incident between Del and his girlfriend involving a knife. Was it an accident, or wasn't it really aggression disguised as an accident? Probably Not, everyone decides - Del, the girlfriend, and perhaps even the narrator - just an accident. Nobody can say for sure, so we just won't bother to say at all. But the injury itself is real, and remains.

Society is no help. A barbecue turns into petty match of egos, simultaneously stunted and monstrous, a road trip brings everybody back to right where they started. Religion isn't what it used to be; now priests are on the lamb to shack up with girlfriends like everybody else, and trying to break into the gambling business to boot. Del and Jen play at confession, and as a result religion seems less mocked than resurrected in some strange new form. Del prays the prayers of his childhood, but of course he isn't a child anymore. Or perhaps prayer given him, at least for a moment, a child's perspective.

There are injuries of many kinds in this novel. Between husband and wife, between colleagues, between strangers and between loved ones, including, of course, brother and brother. The final scene is a funny, endearing example of the power of love and imagination, maybe love as imagination, to heal those injuries.

Average customer rating:

Sensation junkies
Less like a novel than a ride in someone else's mind
Touching revelations about America from its finest writer
Not worth finishing

Painted Desert
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0140242147

Customer Reviews:

Sensation junkies.......2003-06-26

This book concerns media and traveling and cyber-culture. It is about connections where there seems to be a lack of connection because people commit outrageous acts. The main character's friend seeks to right the wrong, but in the midst of the road trip from Mississippi to Arizona, discovers that looking at the scenery and marriage may be more certain avenues of growth.

Less like a novel than a ride in someone else's mind.......1999-02-11

Perhaps he's an acquired taste, or maybe you just need an attention span longer than a Buzz Clip, but no one writes about real people, real life, and the quiet at the heart of the insane neon whirlwind of modern existence quite the way Barthelme does. He understands the tragedy of the lonely traffic light, the way the sting of salt in the air can smell like renewal, the peculiar magic of parking lots at 3 am, the messy reality of road trips that don't take place in Hollywood movies. Painted Desert, like his other works, is less a conventional novel told to you like a bedtime story and more a glimpse of a particular time and place, a specific person and what they were wearing, the awkward rhythm of a conversation with someone you can never really know well enough. The absence of the standard narrative tropes is disorienting at first, but ultimately liberating: the first time I read anything of his I was unnerved by how immediate it was...months later it still haunted me and I had to go back for more. Painted Desert is like a ride in someone else's mind: come along and take that ride, baby it's all right.

Touching revelations about America from its finest writer.......1998-03-01

Like so much of Barthelme's work, Painted Desert tracks misfit middle-aged American males through quirky metaphysical journeys into the millennium. His dialogue is clever and always rings true, his characters are charming, and the situations they face are wonderful, surreal, terrifying. His descriptions -- whether of a motel room during a storm, or a car that seems so big its passengers move their stuff from the trunk to the back seat so they won't "be as lonely", are exquisite and revealing. Only Barthelme can juxtapose the portrayal of a world of mindless violence careening out of control, with gentle humour, touching revelation and a sustaining, almost religious optimism: "Putting one foot in the Painted Desert is more satisfying, fulfilling, more rich and human and decent, than all the vengeance in the world. This country is making us into saints, making us feel like saints, and that's worth everything". And reading and re-reading Barthelme's well-crafted work is also well worth it.

Not worth finishing.......1997-07-27

I hate to be negative about books, but over the last few years I have started a bunch of books and not finished about 10% of them. Its sort of like..."who cares, why go on?" I read half of the book. The craftsmanship is not bad. But it became a chore to continue as I was not interested in the characters, plot and essentially nothing happens in the book. It may be me, but at 12AM last night I closed the book and put in on my book shelves and started another book...if anyone would like to discuss why this book is better than I say..please email me....

Average customer rating:

Disappointing
Disappointing
Masterwork

Elroy Nights
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Counterpoint Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Natural Selection: A Novel

ASIN: 1582433194
Release Date: 2004-09-07

Book Description

Elroy and his wife, Clare, elect to try living separately, a choice characteristic of their relationship-fond, thoughtful, generous to a fault, and more than a little cracked. So Elroy leases a high-rise beach condo, begins hanging out with his twenty-something students, and experiences a splendid re-enchantment with the world. With his trademark precision and pitch-perfect dialogue, Barthelme elegantly lays open this interweaving of twenty-year olds with their fifty-something fellow traveler. The result is a lovely, lilting romance, and a spare yet generous masterpiece from a writer at the top of his form.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing.......2004-09-07

I bought "Elroy Nights" after reading positive reviews on the back cover, but I only reached halfway after feeling deflated and disappointed with the pace and characters. I don't expect the books I read to have a point or a plot per se, but I do expect them to contain something to consider, mull over, and be worthy of my time and effort.

"Elroy Nights" refers to the title character in the novel, an art professor at a small university in Mississippi. It starts with him feeling discontented with his life with Clare, his wife. This is what pulled me in--the descriptions of Elroy's discontent promise some future insight, or SOMETHING. But I just couldn't sympathize with the main character or find his musings anything but vague and meandering. Nothing really happened and nothing was really noted that made me think it was worth it to keep going. In the end there is nothing really original or wise about this one--avoid it.

Disappointing.......2004-02-07

I am an avid reader and writer, and I had to force myself to finish this novel. Although I appreciate the sentiments the author evokes, the reading is BORING. It seems more like a memoir, or a vehicle solely for the author to convey his personal feelings and/or experiences regarding the disillusionment of mid-life contrasted with the searching and angst of today's youth. A fertile subject matter, but the way this book is written you'd either have to be in awe of the author's personna or had almost exact similar experiences as the narrator for the book to grab you. It doesn't grab me, and I wanted to go there. Berthelme says the same thing over and over again, with the same words re-tossed, and I got it the first few times. This one should've been a short story.

No doubt Barthelme is a good writer. My problem with large portions of this book is that he seems to know this, and the writing gets a little too smart for its own good, at the expense of this reader's interest. What is frustrating is that you have to wade through stilted dialouge and ruminations for the sake of ruminating (like the technicaly great music solo that goes everywhere, but nowhere) to get to the brilliant passages - the nights the protagonist spends outside on his wife's deck, and his detailed noticing of nature with clarity he hasn't enjoyed since youth. Good stuff.

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, and, therefore, I don't do it often. But, I guess if these pages are to serve what I assume to be their purpose, I need to be honest. This book is NOT a masterpiece. For it to be hailed as one would be unjust in my mind, given that we all have our own notions of justice. The other stuff I've read by Barthelme is better. Read some, because this guy can write. He just misses the mark here, but at least he's shooting.

Masterwork.......2003-11-02

I've been reading Barthelme since his first collection of stories - the mesmerizing 'Moon Deluxe' - and ELROY NIGHTS is his finest work yet. It's a masterpiece. Measured, beautiful, heartbreaking, and deeply felt.

If there were any justice in the world, this new novel would sweep the literary awards. My fear, however, is that publishing insiders will continue to reward their own mediocrity.

The story does travel some of the same paths as Barthelme's other work, but the language here is more mature, richer than anything else in his catalog.

As always, the characters are remarkable, smart, sassy, and brutal. And impossible not to watch.

The climax of the story is shocking, and the sweet denoument plays honest and forlorn.

I can't recommend it enough.

Bob the Gambler
Average customer rating:

Losing It

Wonderful

A chilling look at gambling and love.

Barthelme's Best Book

A slamming book.

Bob the Gambler
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 039592474X

Book Description

A New York Times Notable Book In this darkly funny story, Ray and Jewel Kaiser try (and push) their luck at the Paradise casino. Peopled with dazed denizens, body-pierced children, a lusty grocery-store manager, and hourly employees in full revolt, this is a novel about wising up sooner rather than later--"a wise and funny tale" (New York Times Book Review) that is "masterfully observed" (John Barth).

Customer Reviews:

Losing It.......2003-06-27

The night after I finished this book I found myself before a slot machine in a small casino. I had a feeling and put a quarter in. I won and won again. I stuffed the quarters in my pockets but there were no buckets available. When I lost two quarters in a row I left. Unfortunately this was a dream and I awoke empty handed. Bob the Gambler is a beautifully observed, enviably perfect novel by a master who doesn't seem flashy because he stays within his means. It is also a surprisingly, even surreally loving story. The novel centers around the fissioned nuclear family of down-on-his luck Biloxi architect Bob Kaiser, a plump transplant moved by the Mississippi coastal decay before it was invaded by "gussied-up Motel 6 hotel rooms [and] an ocean of slicked-back hair," his pretty, witty, and wonderful wife of nine years Jewel, who is tough and stable, and yet the first to thirst for casino action, Jewel's daughter RV, an amazingly rendered, very sweet fourteen year old mid-90's teenager whom Bob adores, and Frank, the family dog. All the principals, as well as Bob's mother, whom we meet later in the book, are expert at the art of the cryptic tough-talking but secretly loving epigram. One of the great charms of this book is the depths of love of the family members both concealed by and revealed by their fragmented banter and quips. There are some wonderful moments and descriptions of daily life and teenage rearing, the euphoric swirl of casino gambling, and the decrepit Mississippi coast. The lasting impression one is left from this book, aside from the controlled brilliance of Barthelme's prose, is in my opinion a meditation on the meaning of money vis-à-vis love. Bob's wife's name, Jewel, is a token of facets of wealth unobtainable by any number of markers or wild infatuation-like risks; theirs, an irreducible love that includes and absorbs others (such as RV) in its understated wake, is the multicolored antithesis of liaisons such as those between David Duke (who make a cameo appearance)-and a sprightly young thing-of any coupling that can be price tagged, exchanged, or discarded. The casino and noncasino lights that surround Jewel, in her preternatural (and perhaps ultimately unrealistic, or at least extremely rare) stability, enact a preciousness beyond money and its temporary accumulations. They symbolize the nonmonetary values of the gift of being, the privilege not of accumulating but of existing-of the privilege of being alive, a spectator of phenomena in a world whose mortal decay, far from being its downfall, guarantees the preciousness of the light show it displays. Anyone who has taken junkets to Atlantic City may have noticed how on the flight there everyone chatters; they are full of excitement on hope. The way back is different. Everyone, or almost everyone has lost. They are quiet-until the plane lands, at which point they clap. Why? Because, although they have lost their money, they are newly appreciative of the far more precious gift of being alive. That is the mini-miracle, the lottery ticket, the stiff Barthelme hits for us in this wonderful paean to human frailty and true, tough love. In a way, Barthelme, his heart bigger than any red chip, says in this book the exact opposite of comedian Steven Wright's quip, "You can't have everything, where would you put it?" Barthelme says (with mathematician Paul Erdos) you do have everything, you have it all, already-you are infinitely rich.

Wonderful.......1999-12-01

I read this book as soon as it came out, have recommended it to friends, and just now purchased another copy as a gift. It's one of the best books I've read in years. The characters are so acutely observed, the dialogue so on target, that I got carried away with it. The well-written gambling scenes made my hands sweat at points. And the ending -- the ending is absolutely perfect.

A chilling look at gambling and love........1999-06-22

Barthelme's new book is fantastic. Rich in detail like his earlier "Two Against One," and chilling in its ability to paint the down and out life of its characters.

Barthelme's Best Book.......1998-09-25

Gambling that brings you on the riverboat and gives you a glimpse of WHY people do it w/o maudlining out in a 12-step quagmire, ennui that doesn't make the book drag, hilarious man versus teenager (as funny/insightful as richard ford got it in Independence Day), interesting take on close/distant couples, and Mississippi like it is-- channel surfing, fast food eating, forget the mimosas and petticoats. And Piggly-Wiggly for one and all.

A slamming book........1998-08-30

Barthelme's latest may mine some of the same territory as his other books, but he handles the dark world around the pathetic gambling boats on the Gulf Coast so deftly that it all plays like a miniature masterpiece.

Average customer rating:

The meaningless malaise of middle-age angst

Natural Selection: A Novel
Frederick Barthelme
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Elroy Nights

ASIN: 1582431310

Book Description

Finally restored to print, Frederick Barthelme's classic novel about love, marriage, and one man's search for something more.

Peter Wexler is unhappy. He's forty and obsessed with what's wrong in the world, including his marriage, a "thirtysomething" version of Ozzie and Harriet. Deciding a change of scenery might help put his life back in order, Peter leaves his wonderful wife and their ten-year-old son in search of a resolution to the confusion, estrangement, fatigue, and adultery that have confounded his life.

Natural Selection is an intimate novel about a man getting smart, and getting there a little later than he should have. It's caustic and subtle, slick and funny, charming, deeply melancholy, and more than anything else, true.

Customer Reviews:

The meaningless malaise of middle-age angst.......2004-12-19

Books about white male mid-life crisis are so plentiful that they are nearly a genre unto themselves. In "Natural Selection," Barthelme applies his minimalist style to yet another entry in this genus: the story of the 40-year-old, once-divorced, twice-married husband and father Peter Wexler. This 1990 novel, if it is read by future generations at all, will probably be remembered for its unexpectedly shocking and seemingly senseless ending, but it is--intentionally or not--mostly a deeply cynical satire of the media-manufactured epidemic of middle-age malaise.

Wexler, who without really trying or caring has become successful at a meaningless job he despises in a public relations firm, has a wonderful wife and an understanding son, but he's deeply unhappy with the world. His anger and depression is unfocused but it's usually set off by little things: "a guy at the office for lying, or somebody on TV for a specious argument, or a politician for unscrupulous ads, or a magazine article riddled with manipulative distortions." After failing to keep his promise to his wife and son to stop complaining so much, he moves into separate quarters, with both comic and tragic consequences.

On the one hand, Barthelme's prose works best with Wexler's interior monologues, in which the wayward suburbanite tries to shake himself of his day-to-day angst. Wexler knows he loves his wife and his son in spite of the tedium of his existence but can't help but wonder if that's all there is to life. On the other hand, the dialogue is a plastic patois, a parody of middle-class speech that fails to give the remaining characters in the novel any substance and lends a sense of unreality to the conversations that dominate the book. Put simply: nobody talks like that. (Wexler son, in particular, speaks like a nine-year-old Tucker Carlson, sans bowtie.)

As parody, this banter sometimes works, but the overall effect is to render the book's explosive finale nearly meaningless. In Barthelme's manipulative hands, Wexler realizes too late the obvious moral of this story: he's been valuing and enjoying the wrong things in life; the cup has always seemed half empty when it has, in fact, been nearly full. But one can almost smell the smug tone of Barthelme's writing (you want something to whine about, I'll give you something to whine about), and the reader, who has never seen the cast of the supporting characters as much more than satirical sounding boards for Wexler's imagined psychoses, is left emotionally stranded alongside a Houston highway when Wexler finally learns his lesson.

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Painted Desert
Frederick BARTHELME
Manufacturer: Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OPM3X8

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