Head: Stories

By William Tester

Book Overview

"People speak of stories and novels as being 'plot-driven, ' or, say, 'voice-driven.' If anything, Tester's stories are fear-driven. There is, in these stories, fear of women--each jittery flirtation an agony of nervous desire--fear of a cruel stepfather who routinely endangers his stepsons, fear of one's prospects. There is fear of the very act of speech, given the narrator's ruinous stutter. Yet it is the resulting clumsiness--the missteps, the need so great--that seduces us in ways some smooth operator could not."--Amy Hempel

The eleven gorgeous stories in Head are remarkably varied in setting and cultural context: a bullying cattleman forces his two stepsons to lay fence in a Florida swamp; a haunted gay drifter hooks up with a rich young Italian in the shadow of the Vatican. Like Harold Brodkey's manic protagonists, William Tester's characters seem constantly poised on a psychic edge. Head contains some of the most daring and genuinely erotic writing in contemporary literature.

William Tester is a native of Charleston and North Florida, and is the author of the novel Darling, published by Alfred A. Knopf (1992). He has degrees from Syracuse and Columbia Universities, and is the recipient of the NEA Fellowship for Fiction, the Hob Broun Prize, the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Richmond, Virginia.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1889330485
• ISBN13: 9781889330488
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful

Beautiful spare stylish prose with great movement. Couldn't put it down until I finished every story. Especially wowed by "Wet" and "Bad Day."

This Book Was Not Co-authored

William Tester wrote it, brilliantly, all by himself.

Powerful, thoughtful book

I started reading Head at a friend's house and couldn't put it down. William Tester's writing is elegant, his characters true and complex, and his stories thoughtful and sometimes funny and often heartbreaking. The longer stories (my favorite is Floridita; also love Wet) are especially good. Tester creates the types of scenes and characters that stay with you -- I find that parts of the book will come back to me when I'm going about my day, cooking dinner or riding the bus or whatever. At a time when glibness often passes for art, it is inspiring to find a writer who is not afraid to look closely, seriously, honestly, at everyday moments that define a life. I recommend this book without reservation. It is worth your time.

Loosely Linked Stories!

There are 11 loosely linked stories in this collection that tracks a former farm boy from the Florida swamps to his growing up and dealing with fearful and blundering romances. In fact, most of these stories deal with the main characters fear in almost everything. These stories can be funny at times, and yet very erotic. Tester has a way of really exposing his characters for who they really are, and by the way he uses language in each sentence you know right away the narrator has a stutter. Two of the stories I really enjoyed were:"The Living and the Dead" about a gay drifter who hooks up with a rich young Italian in the shadow of the Vatican, and "Floridita" about a mother and her three children listening to audiotapes sent home from Vietnam by their soldier-father. "Floridita" brought back memories of sending my own tapes back home to my parents when I was serving in Vietnam. At first I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book, but you'll find as you read further and further into this book, you'll really enjoy these stories. They leave a lasting impression on you!!