The Virginity of Famous Men - by Christine Sneed (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>This collection of short stories "on the human condition features protagonists attempting to make peace with the choices--both personal and professional--they have so far made"--Publisher marketing.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><i>The Virginity of Famous Men</i>, award-winning story writer Christine Sneed's deeply perceptive collection on the human condition, features protagonists attempting to make peace with the choices--both personal and professional--they have so far made. In "The Prettiest Girls," a location scout for a Hollywood film studio falls in love with a young Mexican woman who is more in love with the idea of stardom than with this older American man who takes her with him back to California. "Clear Conscience" focuses on the themes of family loyalty, divorce, motherhood, and whether "doing the right thing" is, in fact, always the right thing to do. In "Beach Vacation," a mother realizes that her popular and coddled teenage son has become someone she has difficulty relating to, let alone loving with the same maternal fervor that once was second nature to her. The title story, "The Virginity of Famous Men," explores family and fortune. Long intrigued by love and loneliness, Sneed leads readers through emotional landscapes both familiar and uncharted. These probing stories are explorations of the compassionate and passionate impulses that are inherent in--and often the source of--both abiding joy and serious distress in every human life.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Snared by each of the collection's tragic, comic, quirky and/or quotidian lives . . . the reader tears through page after page and by the end feels not only bereft but ravenous, hungry for more . . . Fiercely meditative and unnerving short fiction. <b>-- <i>New York Times Book Review</i></b><br></br>These marvelously precise and lucid stories, so rich in psychological insights, so propulsive, switch from funny to wrenching in a heartbeat. Like Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Edith Pearlman, Sneed, as attuned to our buzzing--hive world as she is, writes timeless stories richly human in their empathy and wit, grace, and toughness. <b>-- starred review, <i>Booklist</i></b><br></br>This is an absolute gem of a collection, each perfectly formed story encompasses a world. <b>-- featured, boxed review, <i>The Bookseller (UK)</i></b><br></br>Sneed's strength is her characters; we often find them in the middle of a choice. It feels refreshing. These are not the aimless, wondering, interior characters we dread in short fiction. The active nature of every one of Sneed's people is that they want something, and we know what that something is. They desire to get away, dissolve into someone else, be saved, and ultimately not be on their own. We empathize with their desires, and root for--and sometimes fear for--the decisions they make. <b>-- <i>Los Angeles Review of Books</i></b><br></br>Readers will find themselves invested in these worlds and lives. Tenderly portrayed and sharply observed. A rich collection. <b>-- <i>Kirkus Reviews</i></b><br></br>[An] impressive and expansive story collection . . . From the rich and famous to the down and out, Sneed's characters are exposed by life's twists and turns, their inner struggles laid bare as they seek connection to the people they love most. <b>-- <i>Publishers Weekly</i></b><br></br>Sneed is as much heir to John O'Hara and John Cheever as to . . . Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant. <b>-- <i>Chicago Tribune</i></b><br></br>Sneed is excellent on the poetry of glamour, how it holds up well from a distance and dissolves on approach. <b>-- <i>VICE</i></b><br></br>Sneed's immersive stories contain such full worlds that they almost feel like distilled novels . . . [Her] sophisticated wit and emotional acuity . . . keep these stories vibrant. <b>-- <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b><br></br>[<i>The Virginity of Men</i>] imparts a lifetime of wisdom on the difficulties of love. <b>--2016 Fiction Shortlist, <i>Chicago Review of Books</i></b><br></br>Three stories in and you are mesmerised by Sneed's confident yet intimate voice and don't want to put the book down till you have read the lot. There is something compelling about her inside track on affairs of the heart...She describes loss (and thereby all life) and makes it bearable in myriad ways. An absolute treat.<b> -- <i>Daily Mail</i></b><br>
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