Π ΠΎΠ²ΠΎΡ Π΅-ΠΊΡΠΈΠ·ΠΈ
Andrei Codrescu calls Gifford βa great comic realist,β while Pedro AlmodΓ³var likens him to the surrealist filmmaker Luis BuΓ±uel, and Jonathan Lethem describes his style as βWilliam Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly.β
In The Roy StoriesΒ Gifford brings his signature style to a collection of tales following the character of Roy, who has made appearances in a number of Giffordβs previous story collections. Roy lives a mystical kind of life, skinning crocodiles in Southern Florida at age nine in the 1940s and playing in the back alleys of Chicago in the 1950s. This deep-feeling boy observes every detail in his surroundings with a sense of dark humor and an openness that will clutch readers tightly by the heart and lead them on a historical journey.
Π Π°ΡΡΠΎΡΡ
The author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages,Β BARRY GIFFORDΒ writes distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Giffordβs writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicagoβs Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Giffordβs fictionβpart-noir, part-picaresque, always entertainingβis born of the clash between what he has referred to as his βNorthern Sideβ and βSouthern Side.β Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novelΒ Wild at HeartΒ was adapted into the 1990 Palme dβOr-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
