Cold Snap - SIGNED -
Thom Jones
1995 - Little, Boston New York Toronto London - First Edition
Thom Jones’ second book, a collection of short stories in which Jones wrestles with overadrenalized themes of desire, mania, and rage. His circus of characters includes Rwandans, doctors who fall in love with their illnesses, an advertising writer who uses the hand of the devil to do the work of God.
Thom Jones has a past as a boxer, an alcoholic, a Recon Marine, and a janitor, which has brought him to his present state as an epileptic (a military brawl began the epileptic fits for which he was discharged) and one of the finest short-story craftsman writing today. (AC)
‘The aptly titled 'Cold Snap' presents a gallery of the walking wounded. These are 'characters' in the fullest sense of the term, and, though they are all in dire states, the last thing they demand is pity. Bleakly and outrageously comic, the inhabitants of Mr. Jones's fictional landscape are never less than articulate about their fates....The vision in 'Cold Snap' is bleak and intransigent. Yet, over all, Thom Jones's stories are anything but grim; they quiver with their own manic life.’ - New York Times Book Review.
‘Jones' characters seldom are inviting, as they might be divided between those trying to die and those barely reconciled to continuing to live. 'Cold Snap', though, is imbued with a strange underlying tenderness and hope; elsewhere his actors are possessed of wrenching despair, crumbling machismo, bizarrely resigned humor. Regardless, you are bound to each by Jones' deftly visceral, febrile writing....It is Jones' rich genius that he can create empathy where it is least expected, bring you into the personal hell of characters who, objectively, may be utterly foreign; and have you come away loving it, feeling a hope in the despair. This is rawness, but rawness measured, meted out with odd humor; this is freneticism that is never out of control; these are voices that ring dizzyingly true.’ - San Francisco Review of Books.
pp. [10] 228 [2] Condition: Fine in fine dust jacket Ref: 102892 Price: HK$ 800
‘The aptly titled 'Cold Snap' presents a gallery of the walking wounded. These are 'characters' in the fullest sense of the term, and, though they are all in dire states, the last thing they demand is pity. Bleakly and outrageously comic, the inhabitants of Mr. Jones's fictional landscape are never less than articulate about their fates....The vision in 'Cold Snap' is bleak and intransigent. Yet, over all, Thom Jones's stories are anything but grim; they quiver with their own manic life.’ - New York Times Book Review.
‘Jones' characters seldom are inviting, as they might be divided between those trying to die and those barely reconciled to continuing to live. 'Cold Snap', though, is imbued with a strange underlying tenderness and hope; elsewhere his actors are possessed of wrenching despair, crumbling machismo, bizarrely resigned humor. Regardless, you are bound to each by Jones' deftly visceral, febrile writing....It is Jones' rich genius that he can create empathy where it is least expected, bring you into the personal hell of characters who, objectively, may be utterly foreign; and have you come away loving it, feeling a hope in the despair. This is rawness, but rawness measured, meted out with odd humor; this is freneticism that is never out of control; these are voices that ring dizzyingly true.’ - San Francisco Review of Books.
pp. [10] 228 [2] Condition: Fine in fine dust jacket Ref: 102892 Price: HK$ 800