Tyrants: Stories

By Marshall N. Klimasewiski

The grouped stories in Tyrants trace the many forms of emotional inheritance--cultural, romantic, and historical. Some deftly portray both time and place, while others mine interpersonal relations with such intimacy and truth that they could be set anytime, anywhere. In the first sequence of stories, a son inherits and reconsiders his father's convoluted and extravagant notions about love, sex, wealth, and fatherhood. In the second, an American man and his Korean wife confront the cultural implications of a romantic, self-imposed exile. And in the historical fictions that complete the collection, love and flight, ambition, exploration, and exile intertwine in a helium balloon above Sweden, in an Italian airship at the North Pole, and in Stalin's dacha during the Nazi invasion. Marshall N. Klimasewiski's talent for "deft psychological triangulations" (New York Times Book Review) and for capturing "the subtle dynamics between people" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) is on full display here.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393330966
• ISBN13: 9780393330960
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Awesome collection of stories

A very diverse collection of stories. The historical fiction is really exciting and reminds me how important the imagination is in recalling/remembering history, non-fiction. In fiction, regular/common people become complex and important and important figures become human and regular. This is a book I'm glad to have on my shelf. These stories have been published in The New Yorker, Best of Tin House, Subtropics, etc. and their mutual company adds to their value.