Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107625 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 491 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
True Tales of American Life is a collection derived from a project launched by Paul Auster on US National Public Radio. Auster credits his wife with the idea of having listeners send in their own short pieces of true-life writing, from which Auster would choose half a dozen to be read on air each week. But, for all the success of the radio programme, as Auster writes, "you can't hold the words in your hands". Here, then, is the fully "holdable" book. Auster has selected 179 pieces from the 4,000 plus he had received by October 2000. Split fairly evenly between male and female authors, with an age range of 20 to "pushing 90", the collection revels in its multifariousness: the contributors include "a postman, a merchant seaman, a trolley-bus driver, a gas-and-electric-meter reader, a restorer of player pianos, a crime-scene cleaner", and so on. The biographical detail is relevant because inevitably most of these true stories draw on the rawest of raw materials, the writers' own experience.

Auster wanted "true stories that sounded like fiction". In an age where talk shows (think Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake) demand that we tell our life stories as fiction--and encourage us to live our lives as fiction--it's a particularly timely and potent meeting place of reality and art, or in Auster's words, "an archive of facts, a museum of American reality" in fictional form. Unlike Auster, who regularly has to wade through 60 of these tales in a day to meet his weekly radio deadlines, the regular reader can dip in and out. And at a rate of, say, one story per day, this book will keep you fascinated with (and occasionally horrified at) American's true life tales for just about six months. --Alan Stewart

Review
'It is difficult to think of another book published this year, and probably any book to be published next year, that is so simple and so obvious, so excellent in intention and so elegant in its execution, and which displays such wisdom and such knowledge of human life in all its varieties.' Ian Sansom, Guardian; 'Fantastic... Glows with the truth of shared human experience.' The Face; 'Astonishing... This is writing at its very finest.' Independent

Independent, December 2001
This is writing at its very finest - done by a bunch of amateurs.

Customer Reviews

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I was bought this book as a present, by someone who had only read the first story about the chicken. The great thing about it is that you can stop wherever you like in the book, and carry on later. Its an ideal book to be reading alongside your novel.
The best part is that some of the stories you instantly want to tell the first person you see about, and others remind you of tales of chance, coincidence or just quirkiness from your own or your friends experiences.

All in all a thoroughly worthwhile and enjoyable book

A brilliant museum of American weirdness
Paul Auster once said 'stories happen to people who can tell them.' Here he has taken his words at their face value and produced an amazing document - an anthology of 200 true stories sent in to the National Story Project by ordinary yanks. Synchronicity, destiny and slapstick combine to make fantastic reading.
Paul Auster is an amazing writer and here he has tried an amazing experiment and it doesn't just work - there's something almost scary and magic in the result. Read these stories one a day for six months or gobble them down... - either way I think something in this book might change your life. Highly recomended.

Stories for Austerians with short-attention spans
Norman Mailer once said that the average American's attention span was fifteen minutes - as that was the time until the next commercial.

This collection of stories is perfect for anyone who fits into this category.

Paul Auster has a peculiar knack of giving anything associated with him an 'Austerian feel', and these stories are no exception. Many are sentimental, a few are badly written, some are fantastic, but each one deserves its place and gives something unique to the book.

It has the same fascination for a Englishman that road movies have. Somehow, trivial events just count for more in America. Somewhere in that vastness, the magic that these writers imply just may be possible. And 'possibility' is the key to all of Auster's work. You might not get your wish, but keep your eyes open and you might get something better.

'True Tales...' isn't about writing style, cinematic sweep, or literary prizes, it is about a feeling, an attitude, a humanity. Something that fifteen minutes of television just doesn't give you.

You want a breakfast cereal, watch t.v.; you want to feel that life can be a bit more than that, buy the book.