Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Literary Fiction

"I am born" famously begins David Copperfield. However, this is a birth which is blighted by its timing: 12 o'clock on a Friday night at precisely the time the clock began to strike. Such untimeliness means that David was destined to be unlucky in life and would be privileged to see ghosts and spirits, a dubious privilege. In David Copperfield, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are invoked in relation to a range of male characters and situations.

This is the story of a generation, shaped by the 60s, that has reached its time of reckoning, and of a man who must uncover the secrets of his father's past before he can live and love in the present. Mitch Rozier has spent half of his 50 years writing an environmental column for an alternative West coast paper. Now he finds himself back under his father's roof. Sisters Lexa and Mariah McCaskill wrestle with the past that has driven them away from domesticity:

The explosion in storytelling festivals and one-person shows demonstrate that Americans are growing disenchanted with the mass media and returning to the simple pleasures of a well-told story. Here is a survey of great contemporary monologues, including excerpts by Spalding Gray, Lynda Barry, Tom Bodett, and Peter Matthiessen.

Beaufort, South Carolina is home to the Smallwoods, a family closely knit but fiercely at odds. Georgie, the youngest, is tormented by worry for her son, who vanished two years earlier, and by her anger at her father. An unforgiving patriarch and ex-Marine, Georgie's father neglects her mother, belittles her brother Ashby, and denies her sister Claire the financial support she needs after a trying divorce.

Perhaps the finest novel of nineteenth-century England, Bleak House embodies artful narrative, an engaging cast of characters, biting satire, and a detailed depiction of Victorian society. At the height of his creative power in this great work, Dickens pursues two great themes.

Spanning almost thirty years, My Other Life traces the journey of a fictional Paul Theroux—from young bachelorhood in Africa to his travels between continents, from in and out of marriage through various affairs and multiple means of employment. From his early education at the knee of a highly eccentric uncle until his years as a fledgling novelist in London under the wing of the rapacious Lady Max, this writer of different guises eventually retreats alone to his hometown, where he finds the raw material to begin again.

Wild mustangs, ghosts on the ranch, gun-toting outlaws and trailblazing cowboys roam the pages of this collection of 8 classic stories about the American frontier. Travel down "The Road to Hell" with a mysterious ranch builder, face down the "Yellow Devil" mountain lion, travel "Where the Wind Blows Free," and join in on a herd of other adventures that will keep you reading until long after high noon.

In November of 1920, 7-year-old Bill Sackter walked through the looking glass into a state institution for the retarded. He never saw his family again. 44 years later, a much older Bill re-entered the world, hungry for all it could offer.Barry Morrow became that buddy, and learned to see the world through Bill's eyes, colored by his boundless reserve of good cheer and goofy humor. He tells Bill's story in this highly emotional performance.

When one of Dr. Rafael Neruda's patients commits a vicious murder and then kills himself, the psychiatrist is compelled to discover the root causes of the crime. Delving into his own painful childhood, he embarks on a desperate personal mission to confront the nature of evil itself. Endangering both his personal and professional future, Neruda devises the ultimate test for his cure for evil— a cure that becomes a shocking journey of eroticism, manipulation, and danger.

There are eight million stories in the naked city; Anna is one of them. Let 'Em Eat Cake is a gritty, funny first novel that draws us into the life of lower-middle-class New York City as never before.

A brooding, suspenseful novel of sensuality and vengeance, set amid the fields and villages of 19th century England. Bella Ford, jilted by her unscrupulous lover, plans revenge that ends in a catastrophic act of violence.