Zusatztext Extraordinary by any measure. . . . With this collection [Shepard] becomes a storyteller in the purest sense. The New York Times Book Review Devastatingly artful. . . . Brutal and satisfying. . . . In their careful craft and mysterious revelations! the best stories in Great Dream of Heaven recall . . . Chekhov. Minneapolis Star Tribune Strong emotions . . . make a Sam Shepard story as familiar as an old leather saddle. . . . Shepard's terse! lyrical style excels. . . . There's something broadly American . . . about the frustrations his characters feel. San Francisco Chronicle Shocking. . . . Often funny. . . . Shepard's writing is consistently excellent. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel His playwriting skills . . . make his fiction shimmer with a brutal clarity. Los Angeles Times Book Review Informationen zum Autor Sam Shepard was the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he appeared in more than sixty films, and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff . He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven . In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He died in 2017. Klappentext In eighteen stories unlike any in our contemporary literature, Sam Shepard explores the vast and rugged American West with the same parched intensity that has made him "the great playwright of his generation (The New York Times). A boy watches a "remedy man tame a wild stallion, a contest that mirrors his own struggle with his father. A woman driving her mother's ashes across the country has a strangely transcendent run-in with an injured hawk. Two aging widowers, in Stetsons and bolo ties, together make a daily pilgrimage to the local Denny's, only to be divided by the attentions of their favorite waitress. Peering unblinkingly into the chasms that separate fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and strangers, these powerful tales bear the unmistakable signature of an American master.THE REMEDY MAN E.V. made no bones about it; he was not a horse whisperer by any stretch. He was a remedy man. He could fix bad horses, and when he fixed them they stayed fixed. That's all he laid claim to. We had one that needed to be turned around real bad. A five-year-old my dad had claimed off the low end of the fair circuit out in Sonoma, running for $1,200 tags. He was good-looking enough with a powerful hip and gaskin but his mind was the size of a chickpea. The one intolerable habit he had was setting back hard against his lead shank when tied to anything solid. The day he dragged down half the side of our pole barn on top of himself was the day we called E.V. He showed up at our place a week late in his usual beat-up outfit: a '54 Chevy half ton with Arizona plates and a one-horse trailer sporting bald tires and a flapping canvas top. He always parked his rig down on the flat bottom and hiked the steep gravel grade up to the house because he had no rearview mirrors to negotiate our hairpin turnaround. He didn't come to our place that often because most of the "knuckleheads" Dad was able to deal with himself, but when E.V. did pay us a visit I always got excited about it. E.V. was a springy little man in his late fifties with an exaggerated limp from having his kneecap crushed in a shoeing accident when he was about my age; about fourteen. He climbed the hill in steady jerks, his gray felt hat pointing straight down at the ground and bobbing with his gait. He had an old patched inner tube slung over one shoulder and a thick snow white cotton rope dangled from his...

Autorentext

Sam Shepard was the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he appeared in more than sixty films, and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He died in 2017.

Klappentext

In eighteen stories unlike any in our contemporary literature, Sam Shepard explores the vast and rugged American West with the same parched intensity that has made him "the great playwright of his generation” (The New York Times).

A boy watches a "remedy man” tame a wild stallion, a contest that mirrors his own struggle with his father. A woman driving her mother's ashes across the country has a strangely transcendent run-in with an injured hawk. Two aging widowers, in Stetsons and bolo ties, together make a daily pilgrimage to the local Denny's, only to be divided by the attentions of their favorite waitress. Peering unblinkingly into the chasms that separate fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and strangers, these powerful tales bear the unmistakable signature of an American master.

Leseprobe
THE REMEDY MAN

E.V. made no bones about it; he was not a horse whisperer by any stretch. He was a remedy man. He could fix bad horses, and when he fixed them they stayed fixed. That's all he laid claim to. We had one that needed to be turned around real bad. A five-year-old my dad had claimed off the low end of the fair circuit out in Sonoma, running for $1,200 tags. He was good-looking enough with a powerful hip and gaskin but his mind was the size of a chickpea. The one intolerable habit he had was setting back hard against his lead shank when tied to anything solid. The day he dragged down half the side of our pole barn on top of himself was the day we called E.V. He showed up at our place a week late in his usual beat-up outfit: a '54 Chevy half ton with Arizona plates and a one-horse trailer sporting bald tires and a flapping canvas top. He always parked his rig down on the flat bottom and hiked the steep gravel grade up to the house because he had no rearview mirrors to negotiate our hairpin turnaround. He didn't come to our place that often because most of the "knuckleheads" Dad was able to deal with himself, but when E.V. did pay us a visit I always got excited about it.

E.V. was a springy little man in his late fifties with an exaggerated limp from having his kneecap crushed in a shoeing accident when he was about my age; about fourteen. He climbed the hill in steady jerks, his gray felt hat pointing straight down at the ground and bobbing with his gait. He had an old patched inner tube slung over one shoulder and a thick snow white cotton rope dangled from his left hand with the loose end looped through his horse- hair belt. I always thought he must have washed that rope regular in Ivory to keep it so white. It was the cleanest thing about him. When he got to the top he wasn't puffing or blowing like you'd think a man his age would be. He just arrived like he'd been air-dropped. "So, Mason, you shipped him off to the killer's yet?" He grinned at my dad so you could catch a glimpse of his few brown jagged teeth and the tiny gleaming diamonds for eyes that jumped right out at you through hooded slits; like Indian eyes except they were ice blue.

"Waitin' on you another week I'da cut his head off myself," my dad said, and there wasn't that much fun in his voice.

"Apologize, Mason, but I had me a couple errands to run, down in Oakdale."

"Errands my ass. You were off runnin' pussy is all." E.V. gave out with a high shrill squealing that was pure animal glee and me and my dad had to give in to laughing with him although my dad cut it off shorter than I felt was natural. We walked down to the round pe…