Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Broken Rules & Other Stories
Author: THOMPSON BARRY LEE
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 01/09/2020
Imprint: Transit Lounge Publishing
Price: $30.00
Publishing status: Active
These awards-listed, interlinked stories vividly capture the
small, rarely spoken moments of our lives that reverberate with meaning, with
darkness and with light. An adolescent son and his parents on their annual
holiday at a Bournemouth guesthouse become intrigued with the glamour and
otherness of an American family from Boston. An adult son and his mother
navigate an unnerving relationship based on dependence and ritual. A woman
transgresses her husband’s rules and his distaste for parties. A sex-worker
empathises with the life of an elderly client. From derelict industrial
districts, to a lonely highway diner, to the faded charm of a British seaside
resort, these are stories of growing up marginalised and living in
working-class England and Australia. Thompson’s writing is so clear and deep
and lucid you can see every crumb on the tablecloth, every drop of water on a
person’s hair.
Broken Rules and Other Stories´ nuanced play of character, psychology
and language, and its focus on the mysteries we are all involved in when we are
out of our depth, exposed to our emotions, our wonders and our longings, marks
the emergence of a remarkable new talent.
‘A
voice in your head, full of texture and truth. Slices of life spliced to yours.
Suddenly the stories in Broken Rules
are happening to you, finding their way into your brain and heart. You feel as
if you were walking with phantom limbs – those of Barry Lee Thompson.
Magnificent writing – literature at its strongest, at its gentlest.’ — Catherine
de Saint Phalle, author of Poum and
Alexandre and The Sea & Us
'In this accomplished debut, Barry Lee Thompson makes delicate inquiries into the passage of time through a series of loosely linked, often coming-of-age stories…Thompson cherishes the intimate, would-be mundane details all around. That exacting eye distinguishes these stories most, along with a sensitivity attuned to life’s inevitable waystations.' — Doug Wallen, Books+Publishing
ISBN: 9781925760552
Dimension: 234mm X 153mm