These award-winning stories comprise a first collection as breathtaking as Ethan Canin's The Emperor of the Air. Compelling, vivid, persistent, the characters here are separated from the mainstream, yet strive to define themselves and realize their lives and dreams. A husband connects with his aging wife at the moment of their greatest trial; a cleaning lady is filled with admiration and compassion for the brilliant scientist who employs her; a young woman seeks to find the brash and daring friend who saved her. Precise and impeccably made, these stories explore the many varieties and the deep magnitude of love. They show us, too, how love, when used unwisely, can harden into a resentment so strong that its consequences resonate through many lives. Magical and mythic, set in Asia, America, and Europe, the stories in The Secrets of a Fire King delight and surprise with their extraordinary and sure-handed range. Many of these stories received prizes and awards, including a Pushcart Prize, a Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories.
- ISBN10 0393040267
- ISBN13 9780393040265
- Publish Date 24 April 1997
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 September 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 240
- Language English