Sometimes It's New York: Stories

by Claude Stanush

Delving into the interior lives of an array of characters, this collection of short stories conveys the author's Texas roots with a New York twist, providing a look at Americana with humor and poignancy. These stories provide a rich collection of unforgettable characters--a New York bishop, artists, an aspiring novelist, the mother superior of a Catholic convent, a drug addict, a street drunk, and a pioneer blacksmith--the doomed and the blessed...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0916727181
• ISBN13: 9780916727185
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Wings Press (TX)
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Thirteen Truthful Stories

In his Afterword, San Antonio writer Claude Stanush says "the test of good fiction is its truthfulness about human life and all its many dimensions." He also tells us that he came to write fiction late in life, in his forties, after years as a journalist for the San Antonio Light and later for Life magazine. Now, in his eighties, Stanush has written a collection of thirteen truthful stories about displaced people struggling to live life to its full potential. Some of the characters in "Sometimes It's New York" are displaced Texans dealing with cultural adjustments, while others are displaced from themselves and their emotions. There's the college professor in "The Deer" whose wife has suddenly, and to him, inexplicably left him after twenty-nine years of marriage. There's the somewhat lecherous scientist/physician in "The Oak and the Orchid" secretly in love with his female patient. And the beautiful 19th-century woman in "The Artist" who paints endless, and ageless, self-portraits as she withers in her lonely, befuddled life. As the father, engaged in a battle of wits with a cottonmouth, says in "Live and Let Live": "It's the exceptions that cross you up. With snakes, with human beings, with everything. There's no absolute certainty.' The stories are filled with lively, realistic dialogue and with clean, deceptively simple prose, that often seems to meander along before it reaches its stunning and sharply-focused endings. I kept trying to compare Stanush to other writers. One story brought Eskine Caldwell to mind, while the next reminded me of Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." In the end I decided Stanush is unique, gifted with the ability to touch the heart while also engaging the intellect. These stories are not easy reads. Every word has impact. They often stick in your craw, but also in your memory. You find yourself thinking about them and the characters long past the end. Claude Stanush deserves every literary award he's ever won, and there have been plenty. He merits the critical accolades that have come his way. Best remembered for the films based on his work "The Newton Boys" and "The Lusty Men," Stanush isn't as well known to the average reader as Larry McMurtry, although he is every bit as much of a Texas treasure. He should have a wider audience. He writes with wisdom, and with a deep kindness for his fellow man. His fiction passes the test.