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    The Uninnocent: Stories
    Unavailable
    The Uninnocent: Stories
    Unavailable
    The Uninnocent: Stories
    Ebook272 pages5 hours

    The Uninnocent: Stories

    By Bradford Morrow

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “The Unninocent is a masterpiece of empathy and of storytelling. Even if this is the first time reading Morrow, you’ll feel like you’ve been waiting your whole lifetime for this dark bouquet to appear. I love this chapel of unholy stories with their charming, monstrous, wholly sympathetic characters.”—Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!   Bradford Morrow’s stories have garnered him awards such as the O. Henry and Pushcart prizes and have given him a devoted following. Now gathered here for the first time is a collection of his finest, gothic tales.   A young man whose childhood hobby of collecting sea shells and birds’ nests takes a sinister turn when he becomes obsessed with acquiring his brother’s girlfriend, in “The Hoarder” (selected as one of the Best American Noir Stories of the Century). An archeologist summoned to attend his beloved sister’s funeral is astonished to discover it is not she who has died, but someone much closer to him, in “Gardener of Heart.” A blind motivational speaker has a crisis of faith when he suddenly regains his sight, only to discover life was better lived in the dark, in “Amazing Grace.”    In all of these stories, the reader will be delighted to find himself enthralled and captivated by one of the most potent voices in contemporary American fiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPegasus Books
    Release dateDec 13, 2011
    ISBN9781453226094
    Unavailable
    The Uninnocent: Stories
    Author

    Bradford Morrow

    Bradford Morrow is an American novelist, editor, essayist, poet, and children's book writer. Professor of literature and Bard Center Fellow at Bard College, he is the founding editor of CONJUNCTIONS literary magazine.

    Read more from Bradford Morrow

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    Reviews for The Uninnocent

    3.5/5

    24 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I was pleasantly surprised by this book of short stories. They all hang on the darker side of human nature and are very captivating. At the top of my list for a good read.
    • 5/5
      Bradford Morrow's The Uninnocent is a collection of short stories, each with a theme of various sins, madness, obsessions and other transgressions, or loss. Beautifully written, the darkness in the stories gently takes root and flowers in subtly hideous and frightening ways - the soothing hiss of a serpent's voice - all the more effective because of the gentle language, while the melancholic notes of the more poignant tales draw upon memories of living, of joy and grief, to shape the tales. (Please note: when I describe these as hideous and frightening, I mean something more in line with Henry James' Turn of the Screw; psychological rather than thriller.)This was not a quick read for me, the stories are beautifully and richly written, giving the kind of reading experience that you have to allow to sink in slowly. You could read this quickly, but end up with a sense of reading fatigue; your brain bloated with all the stories. So I'm not sure I would recommend this to a casual reader for beach or travel reading, but I would recommend it to people who enjoy the experiences of reading the literary equivalent of after-dinner dessert wine.4.5 or 5 stars. If you've enjoyed Joyce Carol Oates' Southern Gothic stories, you'll probably enjoy these, though I'd relabel them as Northeastern Gothic, for, if there is such a thing, this would be it.Review copy supplied by the publisher as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. (apologies for the double post; my review wasn't registering properly.)
    • 4/5
      A thoroughly enjoyable group of short storiesI loved this collection. It’s full of intriguing stories, plot twists, and often leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. It is true that the stories are dark but not depressing. I’m don’t usually like short story collections but these stories grab your attention from the start. After reading The Unninocent, I will certainly be trying other titles by this author; and with his Colorado roots, I hope we will see him on the Pen and Podium authors’ lecture series sometime.
    • 4/5
      According to the first-person narrator of “Tsunami,” “But we can’t ever really understand just how dark people’s hearts truly are, how mysterious.” Truer words are never spoken in this stunning and affecting collection of short pieces, which feature betrayal, larceny, abuse, madness, and murder in roughly equal parts. Bradford Morrow (rhymes with sorrow) makes no attempt to plumb the depths of these characters’ psyches, other than to portray their actions and emotions. There is a sad and frightening logic to the goings-on here. His plots and portraits are so compelling: we understand the young collector in the initial story, “The Hoarder,” when he kills his brother. After all, it’s self-defense, but why must he stalk the girlfriend and photograph her in secret? I was left fearing for the girl’s life at the end. We watch in horror as the psychotically misguided protagonist of “(Mis)Laid” mislays his mind, takes his lover hostage, and just as quickly loses his life to a bullet through the brain from a high-powered rifle. But Mr. Morrow, author of the resplendent “The Diviner’s Tale,” achieves his best effects when transcribing the inner dialogs of some of these truly sick puppies.We follow and comprehend the twisted mental process of the mother who kills her husband in “Tsunami” – sort of – but the murder of her children in the bathtub is the only thing that fully explains the depth of her madness. In “Ellie’s Idea,” one story I found to be a little more comic, a young woman may have caused her dodgy husband some real difficulties when she calls his boss to apologize for a months-old slight. She certainly doesn’t smooth the waters of her family relationships, either. “The Enigma of Grover’s Mill” tells a marvelous old-fashioned sci-fi story, but has its own murder. Or does it? This one story features a rather upstanding and well-adjusted hero, but we’re given reason to doubt even this young man’s sanity. Other stories contain other outrages, other macabre goings-on. Mr. Morrow achieves a fugue-like state in which we expect to be wowed by his dark inventiveness, and we are never disappointed. His stories all share a marvelous deadpan delivery of deadly effects – I recommend them very highly.
    • 3/5
      The stories in this aptly named collection are polished, neat, and disturbing, not only because their content tends to be rather dark but also because of their horrible simpilcity and directness. They may be a pleasure best enjoyed in small doses mixed in with other books, however, as I found that reading them straight through I found I was numbed to the darkness by the end.
    • 3/5
      The stories in this aptly named collection are polished, neat, and disturbing, not only because their content tends to be rather dark but also because of their horrible simpilcity and directness. They may be a pleasure best enjoyed in small doses mixed in with other books, however, as I found that reading them straight through I found I was numbed to the darkness by the end.