Archives par étiquette : Gayl Jones

BUTTER de Gayl Jones

A wide-ranging collection, including two novellas and ten stories exploring complex identities, from the acclaimed author of Corregidora, The Healing, and Palmares.

BUTTER:
Novellas, Stories, and Fragments
by Gayl Jones
Beacon Press, April 2023

Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This new collection of short fiction is only the second in her rich career and one that displays her strengths in the genre in many facets. Opening with two novella-length works, “Butter” and “Sophia,” this collection features Jones’s legendary talents in a range of settings and styles, from the hyperrealist to the mystical, in intricate multipart stories, in more traditional forms, and even in short fragments.
Her narrators are women and men, Black, Brown, Indigenous; her settings are historical and contemporary, in South America, Mexico, and the US; her themes center on complex identities, unorthodox longings and aspirations. She writes about spies, photographers, playground designers, cartoonists, and baristas; about workers and revolutionaries, about environmentalism, feminism, poetry, film, and love, but above all about our multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial society.

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan. Her landmark books include Corregidora, Eva’s Man, The Healing (a National Book Award finalist and New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Palmares (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction), and most recently, The Birdcatcher (National Book Award finalist).

THE BIRDCATCHER de Gayl Jones

Legendary writer Gayl Jones returns with a stunning new novel about Black American artists in exile

THE BIRDCATCHER
by Gayl Jones
Beacon Press, September 2022

Gayl Jones, the novelist Toni Morrison discovered decades ago and Tayari Jones recently called her favorite writer, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, Jones is publishing again. In the wake of her long-awaited fifth novel, Palmares, The Birdcatcher is another singular achievement, a return to the circles of her National Book Award finalist, The Healing.
Set primarily on the island of Ibiza, the story is narrated by the writer Amanda Wordlaw, whose closest friend, a gifted sculptor named Catherine Shuger, is repeatedly institutionalized for trying to kill a husband who never leaves her. The three form a quirky triangle on the white-washed island.
A study in Black women’s creative expression, and the intensity of their relationships, this work from Jones shows off her range and insight into the vicissitudes of all human nature—rewarding longtime fans and bringing her talent to a new generation of readers.

“Jones continues her marvelous run after last year’s Pulitzer finalist Palmares with the gloriously demented story of an artist who keeps trying to kill her husband . . . . Jones, implicitly defiant, draws deeply from classic and global literature—a well-placed reference to Cervantes’s windmills leaves the reader’s head spinning. And like one of Amanda’s inventive novels, this one ends on a surprising and playful turn. It ought to be required reading.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“The remarkable latest release by acclaimed novelist and poet Jones . . . Her prose is captivating, at moments coolly observational and at others profoundly intimate; the delicate balance is the mark of a truly great storyteller. An intriguing, tightly crafted, and insightful meditation on creativity and complicated friendships.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“Jones’ mercurial, often inscrutable body of work delivers yet another change-up to readers’ expectations.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Gayl Jones constructs a novel that is part mystery, part thriller, and wholly captivating. . . . a shining segment of the American literary canon has been restored.”
—Kate Webb, Times Literary Supplement UK

“Brilliant and incendiary, Jones’s pairing of tragedy with dark humor cuts to the bone.”
—O. Magazine

“[A novel with] the plush scenery of a travelogue, the misshapen soul of a noir, and the anarchic spirit of a trickster tale.”
—The New Yorker

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley College and the University of Michigan. Her landmark books include Corregidora, Eva’s Man, The Healing (a National Book Award finalist and New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Palmares (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction), and most recently, The Birdcatcher (National Book Award finalist).

THE UNICORN WOMAN de Gayl Jones

Set in the Post WWII South, a dramatic new direction for Jones: narrated entirely by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal.

THE UNICORN WOMAN
by Gayl Jones
Beacon Press, August 2024

Black army veteran named Buddy Ray Guy is a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. He moves around the south, having several women across different states. He recalls his love affairs in post-war France, both in the provinces and in Paris, as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.

Gayl Jones was born in Kentucky in 1949. She attended Connecticut College and Brown University, and has taught at Wellesley and the University of Michigan. Her books include Palmares, a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the recently published The Birdcatcher, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award.