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Little People
The remarkable circumstances of Bonner Foley's life include his blissful involvement with the primeval Little People and his attraction to two sisters, Sylvie and Stasha Boswin
299 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
16 people want to read
About the author
MacDonald Harris
30 books25 followersPseudonym of Donald Heiney
Donald Heiney was born in South Pasadena in 1921. Seastruck from the time he read Stevenson at the age of twelve, he went to sea in earnest as a merchant marine cadet in 1942, sat for his Third Mate's license in 1943, and spent the rest of the war as a naval officer on a fleet oiler. After the war he earned a B.A. at Redlands and a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Southern California. In 1964 he lived with his wife and son in Salt Lake City where he taught writing and comparative literature.
Taking the pseudonym MacDonald Harris for his fiction, his first story appeared in Esquire in 1947. Since then he has published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of literary quarterlies. His story "Second Circle" was reprinted in the 1959 O. Henry Collection. Private Demons, his first novel, was published in 1961. Mortal Leap, his second, was finished in the summer of 1963 in Rome.
His novel The Balloonist was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977. He received a 1982 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his entire body of work.
Heiney died in 1993, at age 71, at his home in Newport Beach, California.
Donald Heiney was born in South Pasadena in 1921. Seastruck from the time he read Stevenson at the age of twelve, he went to sea in earnest as a merchant marine cadet in 1942, sat for his Third Mate's license in 1943, and spent the rest of the war as a naval officer on a fleet oiler. After the war he earned a B.A. at Redlands and a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Southern California. In 1964 he lived with his wife and son in Salt Lake City where he taught writing and comparative literature.
Taking the pseudonym MacDonald Harris for his fiction, his first story appeared in Esquire in 1947. Since then he has published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of literary quarterlies. His story "Second Circle" was reprinted in the 1959 O. Henry Collection. Private Demons, his first novel, was published in 1961. Mortal Leap, his second, was finished in the summer of 1963 in Rome.
His novel The Balloonist was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977. He received a 1982 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his entire body of work.
Heiney died in 1993, at age 71, at his home in Newport Beach, California.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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November 30, 2019A dreamy, dazed American goes to live with friends in an English country house, meets fairies, maybe goes crazy. MacDonald can write, and he has a talent for winding you up with a lot of lyrical prose and then punching you in the gut with something really nasty. All the same this felt a little...languid to me, which is sort of the point, admittedly, but still, it felt a little dull.
July 25, 2017
This book about an American academic's encounters with the "mythical" little people of England, and with a family trying to be country gentry in the same area really engaged me. My husband read several books by MacDonald Harris many years ago, and highly recommended them to me, but I never read them. It turns out that of the several on our shelves, this one he had never read.
The encounters gently explores belief and skepticism, what constitutes mental health, and even whether chastity can lead to happiness (the little people have no interest in sex, since they are immortal).
I can't say that it's a great book, but I enjoyed it very much.
The encounters gently explores belief and skepticism, what constitutes mental health, and even whether chastity can lead to happiness (the little people have no interest in sex, since they are immortal).
I can't say that it's a great book, but I enjoyed it very much.
June 27, 2021
Idk what it is about this book. To me it felt very cringey at times and the way of writing did not jive well with me. I did not appreciate the way mental health was treated in this, but I suppose it is because of the setting and the times the author grew up in. It was also very slow to get going in the beginning. The whole things seemed like the author wrote it out in streams of thought. Somewhat amusing overall.
March 4, 2011
Entertaining read. Possibly more kinds of mental illness in 1 small group of people than in any other book I have ever read and yet I, unlike the characters, had a good time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews