Despair: And Other Stories

by André Alexis

Book Overview

These eight stories reveal a world that's both recognizable and strange: cities of anxiety and violence, where quiet inhabitants lead outwardly banal lives that conceal sinister interiors. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805059792
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 0.8" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

Despair and other feelings

Andre Alexis' fiction collection, Despair and other stories, deals with relationships, love, and the darkness within us all. The stories are often fantastical, with a great deal of horror and humor, but they speak to real situations, fears, and life. Recurring themes are of dreams (especially nightmares), family, hands and fingers (or the absence of such), types of cloth, coincidence, sex, and death. The characters use each other (most notable in the story of a soucouyant), often acting cruelly. They then have philosophical discussions or meditations about good and evil, right and wrong, god, and the purpose of life. The stories do tend to end abruptly, with a sense of things left unfinished, unsaid, and unexplained, but this serves a purpose and leaves one feeling unsettled rather than unsatisfied.