Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The richly imagined but brutal fables in Highsmith's newest collection are gothic horror tales mixed with a dash of macabre humor. One is a reprise of Moby Dick told from the furious whale's point of view; another shows scientists experimenting on cancer-ridden corpses. When the corpses are buried in the cemetery behind the hospital, enormous blobs of fungi grow from themeventually to become a great tourist attraction. For Naomi, 190 or 210 years old, there is truly "No End in Sight." She is without one redeeming quality, prompting Highsmith to imply that it is too bad that "they don't push the old folks over cliffs anymore." In Highsmith's grim, sardonic view, people pollute the earth and carry evil within them. Not for the squeamish or the escapist.Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

'Highsmith is a novelist whose books one can re-read many times. There are few of whom one can say that' Graham Greene 'Highsmith has an incredible talent for making these natural and unnatural errors into believable reportage. You could swear she's writing fact wrapped up in very sly fiction' San Francisco Chronicle 'Though Highsmith would no doubt disclaim any kinship with Jonathan Swift or Evelyn Waugh, the best of these stories is in the same tradition It is Highsmith's dark and savage humour, and the intelligence that informs her precise and hard-edged prose, which puts one in the mind of those authors' New York Newsday 'These stories leave us haunted with afterimages that will tremble - but stay in our minds' New Yorker

A brilliant collection of stories, based on natural and unnatural catastrophes and exploring the macabre and its meaning. The stories range from midnight revelling in an East Austrian cemetery to a picnic for "crackpots" on the White House lawn. They also include the source of the tell-tale smells of Nabuti, the unsporting hiding place chosen by the Nuclear Control Committee for radio-active waste, and the crumbling defence tactics of a luxury high-rise against a crawling army that fumigation cannot kill. Other tales tell of how magic and horror stories followed in the wake of a furious whale, how miracle and revolution were launched when a Pope stubbed his toe, and how happiness came to a woman who thought she was Cleopatra.

A brilliant collection of stories, based on natural and unnatural catastrophes and exploring the macabre and its meaning. The stories range from midnight revelling in an East Austrian cemetery to a picnic for "crackpots" on the White House lawn. They also include the source of the tell-tale smells of Nabuti, the unsporting hiding place chosen by the Nuclear Control Committee for radio-active waste, and the crumbling defence tactics of a luxury high-rise against a crawling army that fumigation cannot kill. Other tales tell of how magic and horror stories followed in the wake of a furious whale, how miracle and revolution were launched when a Pope stubbed his toe, and how happiness came to a woman who thought she was Cleopatra.

Patricia Highsmith, geboren 1921 in Fort Worth, aufgewachsen in Texas und New York. Studium der Literatur und Zoologie. Erste Erfolge als Comictexterin, ab 1950 Buchveröffentlichungen, die auch von Alfred Hitchcock verfilmt wurden und sie berühmt machten. Sie verstarb 1995 in Locarno.