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God Bless America: Stories (2011)

by Steve Almond(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0984592237 (ISBN13: 9780984592234)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Lookout Books

review 1: There's a lot going for this collection--Almond's capacity to make us sympathize with the sort of characters you'd wish to the phantom zone if you unluckily happened on them in real life; his willingness to get those characters into all kinds of trouble, and to do so quickly; the humor. However, the most appealing aspect of "God Bless America" is that even though it is, in a manner of speaking, a collection of stories about "the way we live now," Almond doesn't beat us over the head with his ideas about society. All of that stuff comes out--the fall out of unending war, the blinding capacity of ambition, the human love of obliviousness--through the characters and their situations. In some ways it's a nice antidote to Saunder's "Tenth of December," the stories in which were... more so thesis-forward that it often read as a treatise on "what's wrong with the world."
review 2: The title story of this collection is one of the best I've read in years, and the rest of the stories lived up to my high expectations. While not as "fun" as Almond's first story collection (The Evil B.B. Chow), God Bless America's relative lack of levity owes to the more serious nature of its subject matter. Almond still writes with wit, but maybe allows himself to reach more for insight than entertainment, and the heavier subjects are attacked without restraint. less

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