Stop Breakin Down: Stories

by John McManus

Book Overview

Winner of the Whiting Writers' Award In a voice somewhere between Cormac McCarthy and Kurt Cobain, John McManus explores young people living in extreme situations. Some are in the Tennessee Smoky... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312262787
• ISBN13: 9780312262785
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Spokesman for the intelligent side of Gen-Y

This book, in time, will come to be viewed as a masterpiece. An example of the intelligence of my generation, a generation that has unfairly been branded apathetic and idiotic by the mainstream. I say, maybe we are just understood. Finally, we have one of our peers to give our strange misadventures a voice.Mr. McManus, I salute you! :)

A challenging read but well worth the trouble

I started reading Stop Breaking Down with some trepidation as I felt a personal connection to the author. What I found was a book more challenging than my average read but more rewarding for it.The experiences related in the stories are mundane enough for you to imagine yourself in similar situations, but the intensity of feeling retains that voyeuristic appeal. I dont know anything about post modernism or its relative merits but I do know that the stories seemed alive and the characters at once your best friends and complete strangers.Well done Mr McManus!

Ravishing tour de force from young writer

I heard about "Stop Breakin Down" in Publisher's Weekly and soon sought out a copy, never having heard of McManus previously, not knowing what to expect. Rarely if ever have I been so stunned, so unequivocally awed by an author's first work. This is what fiction is meant to be: a fearless odyssey into the language of the mind. McManus delves unflinchingly into the savagery and beauty of the human soul and maps the lives of the fifteen or so heroes of his stories with beautiful, fluid prose rarely attempted in American fiction. For an author his age to have accomplished this feat is unprecedented. Read "Sleep on Stones," a beautiful, haunting account of obsession and revenge, and you'll be hooked instantly. Read the closer, from which the collection gets its name, and your fingers will grip the page with suspense. Read just about any of the stories and you'll be hooked instantly. McManus is the first of his generation to contribute anything of this magnitude to our canon. If this is what's to come, I'm excited. Ron Franscell, another reviewer on this page, entirely misses the mark when he interprets the book as just another attempt at post-modernism. "Stop Breakin Down" possesses none of that flawed school's arrogant, self-reflexive doublespeak. This is something new, something far better. Already I want to read it again.

keep it on your coffee table to look intelligent

stop breakin down is a very interesting book that you will enjoy every minute of. the stories are intelligently written, and have a nice flow from page to page. this is a great book that you won't regret buying.

A wild and imaginative ride.

John Mcmanus is one of the freshest voices to that I have come across. His style is nothing short of engrossing. Mr. Mcmanus matches anything I have read in a long time for depth and vision, and these are just short stories. His narratives are bright and paint vivid images.