Vintage 9780099518549 (Aus, US) When a man is fired from his job in the story ‘A Glutton for Punishment’, he realises he has enjoyed the failures in his life. The character in this – like many of the other characters in Richard Yates’ Collected Stories – runs over a conversation in his head, with his … Continue reading Collected Stories – Richard Yates
depressing books
Firmin by Sam Savage
Sam Savage, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 9780297854586, 2008 (Aus, US/Kindle) Firmin is a sad, lonely, depressing book. An anthropomorphous rat, achingly empathetic, shares his hopeless, dreaming, doomed existence. The ‘chinless' one was born in a bookstore and suffers from ‘lexical hypertrophy' or, as he also refers to it, a kind of ‘biblio-bulimia', where he at first … Continue reading Firmin by Sam Savage
