Displaying 1 of 1 1998 Format: Book Title: The urban muse : stories on the American city / edited with an introduction by Ilan Stavans. Publisher, Date: New York : Delta Trade Paperbacks, [1998] ©1998 Description: xxi, 361 pages ; 21 cm Subjects: City and town life -- United States -- Fiction. Cities and towns -- United States -- Fiction. Short stories, American. United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction. Other Author: Stavans, Ilan. Notes: "A Delta book"--T.p. verso. 011599 LCCN: 97024135 ISBN: 0385313683 (pbk.) System Availability: 1 # System items in: 1 # Local items: 1 # Local items in: 1 Current Holds: 0 Place Request Add to My List Expand All | Collapse All Availability Fiction/Biography Profile Genre AnthologyFictionSociological Topics City lifeAmerican culture Large Cover Image Trade Reviews Library Journal ReviewAssembling a collection of short stories around a theme is an old idea, one whose value today is often diminished by a nonliterary selection principle that subordinates the quality of the writing to a political or cultural agenda. Yet this collection is wildly successful in letting its stories sing with their own rich voices, and the resulting chorus is sweet music to a reader's literary ear. Stavans has done a superb job of editing this work, gathering 17 stories from an impressive list of writers ranging from James, Melville, and Hawthorne to Fitzgerald, Bellow, Singer, Schwartz, Cheever, Parker, Hughes, and more. The reach of this collection, both through time and across cultures, is perhaps its most impressive accomplishment. Stavans writes in an editorial note of "the city I carry within." What his collection captures very effectively is the city we all carry within, the idea that America is one great city to which we are all connected in ways both subtle and profound. Essential.Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Summary The complexity of the American city is captured in seventeen extraordinary stories that compose this exceptional anthology edited by award-winning author Ilan Stavans. The stories in this collection travel between the greatest of American cities: from F. Scott Fitzgerald's bright bauble of New York to Raymond Chandler's moody Los Angeles; range historically from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Paul Auster; cross gender to Dorothy Parker and race to Zora Neal Hurston and James Baldwin.The Urban Musepays tribute to magnificence of the American city by capturing the full range of voices and cultures that have taken part in its drama. Librarian's View Syndetics Unbound Displaying 1 of 1
