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Americas
There are 22 countries in the Americas. There are 22 stories in this book. In Nicaragua they keep their tears in jars. In Honduras their prayers sound like screams.Guyana has separation anxiety. Welcome to the Americas. 22 stories about 22 countries you thought you knew.
64 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 16, 2012
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44 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 14, 2012
Americas is the first book of short stories I've ever read. I've read many short stories, but I've never purchased a book full of them. It seems odd at first. Why not just buy one big story instead of several tiny ones? But I've discovered that Americas makes the case for this format perfectly. Yes, they could exist on their own and many of them would be just as interesting and subtly brilliant, but it's when you read them as one longer thread that you get the full impact of the overall theme - what makes us different as people and countries allows us to more easily see how we are alike. So in that sense, you're actually getting 23 stories instead of the advertised 22.
I'm not sure how many of the stories are based solely on fact, but that's part of the fun. In one story, I was reading about St. Rose of Lima and the events that happened during her life. I was so intrigued at points that it prompted me to look her up online and read more about her to see if it was true. I discovered that while the author may have fictionalized certain elements, it was still obvious why St. Rose inspired him to write about her. Imagination is a vital component to actual learning. Americas certainly blurred the line between fact and fiction enough to get me to go beyond the text and I like that. It adds an external dimension to the writing that is absent in most other books.
Norman's style of writing is definitely worth mentioning. There's a detached innocence in the way he writes. He makes observations in the same way a child might, without judgement or conclusion. It's almost like reading colourful statements of fact. It's disarming at first, and he often follows it up with a line so truthful that the impact is made even greater. It's a wonderful quality and it works well. There are times when his style provides humour and quirk, and others when it lends an almost ethereal nature to the stories that gives you the impression that there is more being said than just what's on the page.
He is mostly sparse in detail here, using one word, most often the best one, to describe something a less confident writer might use three or four to do. It keeps the stories moving at a good pace and keeps the themes front and center. As a fan of Hemingway, I certainly appreciate this and immediately see the strength in it.
My favourite story is about the Chilean miners. I hate spoilers so I won't say any more than the author creates a beautiful contrast between two tense situations and I feel it's his strongest, most complete story in the collection. That one could easily stand on its own. I suppose the risk in a book with 22 stories in it is that you're bound to have your favourites and least favourites. I had mine. And you'll have yours. But the advantage of a collection of stories is that you'll definitely have several you really like. Which is certainly better odds than picking from today's bestseller list.
I've heard Norman deliver his stories live before and I've always felt the skill in his writing was lost on a drunken crowd who are too often looking for a cheap laugh and less for impressive prose. So I was really excited to get to see his words in a proper format and overall, it doesn't disappoint. Emotion, people, places, and some of the most bizarre facts/fiction you'll read is all here captured in 64 over-too-soon pages and I definitely recommend it. There's enough stories to make a fan of anyone and you can digest the entire thing in an hour if you really wanted. And you probably will.
Buy his book.
I'm not sure how many of the stories are based solely on fact, but that's part of the fun. In one story, I was reading about St. Rose of Lima and the events that happened during her life. I was so intrigued at points that it prompted me to look her up online and read more about her to see if it was true. I discovered that while the author may have fictionalized certain elements, it was still obvious why St. Rose inspired him to write about her. Imagination is a vital component to actual learning. Americas certainly blurred the line between fact and fiction enough to get me to go beyond the text and I like that. It adds an external dimension to the writing that is absent in most other books.
Norman's style of writing is definitely worth mentioning. There's a detached innocence in the way he writes. He makes observations in the same way a child might, without judgement or conclusion. It's almost like reading colourful statements of fact. It's disarming at first, and he often follows it up with a line so truthful that the impact is made even greater. It's a wonderful quality and it works well. There are times when his style provides humour and quirk, and others when it lends an almost ethereal nature to the stories that gives you the impression that there is more being said than just what's on the page.
He is mostly sparse in detail here, using one word, most often the best one, to describe something a less confident writer might use three or four to do. It keeps the stories moving at a good pace and keeps the themes front and center. As a fan of Hemingway, I certainly appreciate this and immediately see the strength in it.
My favourite story is about the Chilean miners. I hate spoilers so I won't say any more than the author creates a beautiful contrast between two tense situations and I feel it's his strongest, most complete story in the collection. That one could easily stand on its own. I suppose the risk in a book with 22 stories in it is that you're bound to have your favourites and least favourites. I had mine. And you'll have yours. But the advantage of a collection of stories is that you'll definitely have several you really like. Which is certainly better odds than picking from today's bestseller list.
I've heard Norman deliver his stories live before and I've always felt the skill in his writing was lost on a drunken crowd who are too often looking for a cheap laugh and less for impressive prose. So I was really excited to get to see his words in a proper format and overall, it doesn't disappoint. Emotion, people, places, and some of the most bizarre facts/fiction you'll read is all here captured in 64 over-too-soon pages and I definitely recommend it. There's enough stories to make a fan of anyone and you can digest the entire thing in an hour if you really wanted. And you probably will.
Buy his book.
March 13, 2013
Book: Americas
Author: Jason Lee Norman
Published: April 2012 by Wufniks Press, 55 pages
Date Read: June 2012
First Line: "In Canada they teach Canadian history to their people in dramatic vignettes that air between commercials during Jeopardy reruns."
Genre/Rating: Short stories; 5/5 Paul Newmans (of an indeterminate age) hiding out in Bolivia, waiting to listen to all of your prayers
(Copy provided by the author)
Review: Lori at TNBBC’s The Next Best Book Blog posted a short story by Jason Lee Norman in early June, and I was just blown away. He had such a poetic use of language and such a mastery of it – such beauty in such few words – that I wanted more. I went to his website and read the sample story from this collection and knew I had to read it. “You know,” Susie said, “you can email the author and ask if he’d send us a review copy.” What? I thought. What dark sorcery is this? This is a thing a book reviewer can do? So I thought, I will try this. This is a thing I will try! And it worked! It was like magic! Wee little book-loving Amy who still lives deep inside of me would be so impressed with grown-up Amy right now.
Even better? This book was WONDERFUL. One of the best books I’ve read this year.
Americas is a collection of short stories, one for each of the 22 countries in the Americas. Each story is 1 to 4 pages long. The book is small; about the length of your hand. Each story feels like it was polished and edited until it shone like a jewel, and then placed into the perfect setting of the beautiful little book. The typeset is gorgeous. The design is gorgeous. It’s a feast for the eyes, this book.
The stories are hard to describe. They’re part fairy tale, part magic realism, part prose poetry. There’s a very Allende or Márquez feel to the writing, which of course works well when writing about Latin American countries. (And, since I’m an unabashed Allende and Márquez fangirl, I was delighted with the similarity in tone.) The author uses the run-on sentence in a way I’ve never seen before: he uses it masterfully, beautifully, like a child would use it, to show abandon and release. Some of them make you laugh with their whimsy and childlike wonder; some of them tear your heart out with the beauty and the truth hiding behind the exaggeration of the words. The last story, the last paragraph? I had tears at the spare, haunting beauty of it. The author knows how to pack a punch, and knows very well how to leave you with his words echoing in your mind.
I wanted to give you a couple of examples of his prose, to show you some of the gorgeous writing in the collection. I seriously want to start handing this out to people as if I’m a door-to-door Bible salesman, I’m most serious. But then I realized, if I do, you won’t discover his words in their native habitat, surrounded by the other words, where they belong. His stories are so sparse, and edited so perfectly, that if I pull some of the sentences that resonated with me most strongly, they’re going to pale out of context. You need to read them where they belong. You need to come upon them like I did, unspoiled, unexpecting, so that when you read them for the first time, you are surprised and startled and, ultimately, completely satisfied.
I want you all to read this. I want you all to be as delighted and emotional and filled with wonder with this collection as I was.
It is books like this that make being a reader an utter and absolute joy.
(Originally published at Insatiable Booksluts)
Author: Jason Lee Norman
Published: April 2012 by Wufniks Press, 55 pages
Date Read: June 2012
First Line: "In Canada they teach Canadian history to their people in dramatic vignettes that air between commercials during Jeopardy reruns."
Genre/Rating: Short stories; 5/5 Paul Newmans (of an indeterminate age) hiding out in Bolivia, waiting to listen to all of your prayers
(Copy provided by the author)
Review: Lori at TNBBC’s The Next Best Book Blog posted a short story by Jason Lee Norman in early June, and I was just blown away. He had such a poetic use of language and such a mastery of it – such beauty in such few words – that I wanted more. I went to his website and read the sample story from this collection and knew I had to read it. “You know,” Susie said, “you can email the author and ask if he’d send us a review copy.” What? I thought. What dark sorcery is this? This is a thing a book reviewer can do? So I thought, I will try this. This is a thing I will try! And it worked! It was like magic! Wee little book-loving Amy who still lives deep inside of me would be so impressed with grown-up Amy right now.
Even better? This book was WONDERFUL. One of the best books I’ve read this year.
Americas is a collection of short stories, one for each of the 22 countries in the Americas. Each story is 1 to 4 pages long. The book is small; about the length of your hand. Each story feels like it was polished and edited until it shone like a jewel, and then placed into the perfect setting of the beautiful little book. The typeset is gorgeous. The design is gorgeous. It’s a feast for the eyes, this book.
The stories are hard to describe. They’re part fairy tale, part magic realism, part prose poetry. There’s a very Allende or Márquez feel to the writing, which of course works well when writing about Latin American countries. (And, since I’m an unabashed Allende and Márquez fangirl, I was delighted with the similarity in tone.) The author uses the run-on sentence in a way I’ve never seen before: he uses it masterfully, beautifully, like a child would use it, to show abandon and release. Some of them make you laugh with their whimsy and childlike wonder; some of them tear your heart out with the beauty and the truth hiding behind the exaggeration of the words. The last story, the last paragraph? I had tears at the spare, haunting beauty of it. The author knows how to pack a punch, and knows very well how to leave you with his words echoing in your mind.
I wanted to give you a couple of examples of his prose, to show you some of the gorgeous writing in the collection. I seriously want to start handing this out to people as if I’m a door-to-door Bible salesman, I’m most serious. But then I realized, if I do, you won’t discover his words in their native habitat, surrounded by the other words, where they belong. His stories are so sparse, and edited so perfectly, that if I pull some of the sentences that resonated with me most strongly, they’re going to pale out of context. You need to read them where they belong. You need to come upon them like I did, unspoiled, unexpecting, so that when you read them for the first time, you are surprised and startled and, ultimately, completely satisfied.
I want you all to read this. I want you all to be as delighted and emotional and filled with wonder with this collection as I was.
It is books like this that make being a reader an utter and absolute joy.
(Originally published at Insatiable Booksluts)
February 25, 2013
Originally posted at
Postcards
.
. . . . . . . .
One day, a guy from Canada decided to visit every country in the Americas, in North-to-South order, and write a travelogue about it. Then he changed his mind and decided to read the Wikipedia article on each country, and write up a brief report. Then he changed his mind and decided to find 22 students who’d each had to write a report for school on one of those countries, and he would combine those reports into a book. As it turned out, many of those students had just skimmed the Wikipedia article and then winged it from there. One kid forgot he was supposed to write about Peru and wrote about Russia instead.
. . . . . . . .
No, not really. Well, if you’re expecting this to be a serious/totally accurate portrayal of each country…then, yes :) Amy of the Insatiable Booksluts calls the stories “part fairy tale, part magic realism, part prose poetry.”
Here’s a description of snow falling in a warm place:
[You are now to imagine this happening inside my head]
Norman’s website offers two sample stories, one of which happens to be my favorite in the collection. Even though it’s roughly near the start of the book, “Honduras” feels like the culmination of all the stories — it focuses on its own assigned country, but also gives you a view of the Americas (and Americas) as a whole. And it has the best closing sentence.
“Costa Rica” has the second-best closing sentence.
. . . . . . . .
[1] From “El Salvador”
. . . . . . . .
One day, a guy from Canada decided to visit every country in the Americas, in North-to-South order, and write a travelogue about it. Then he changed his mind and decided to read the Wikipedia article on each country, and write up a brief report. Then he changed his mind and decided to find 22 students who’d each had to write a report for school on one of those countries, and he would combine those reports into a book. As it turned out, many of those students had just skimmed the Wikipedia article and then winged it from there. One kid forgot he was supposed to write about Peru and wrote about Russia instead.
. . . . . . . .
No, not really. Well, if you’re expecting this to be a serious/totally accurate portrayal of each country…then, yes :) Amy of the Insatiable Booksluts calls the stories “part fairy tale, part magic realism, part prose poetry.”
Here’s a description of snow falling in a warm place:
You’ll hear a sound like grasshoppers or butterflies landing on the roof of your tent and then you’ll hear, all at once, the sound of millions of flakes evaporating like tiny applause. [1]
[You are now to imagine this happening inside my head]
Norman’s website offers two sample stories, one of which happens to be my favorite in the collection. Even though it’s roughly near the start of the book, “Honduras” feels like the culmination of all the stories — it focuses on its own assigned country, but also gives you a view of the Americas (and Americas) as a whole. And it has the best closing sentence.
“Costa Rica” has the second-best closing sentence.
. . . . . . . .
[1] From “El Salvador”
June 24, 2012
You have to take such a short book for what it is. It's a very readable, very fun experiment with magic realism and with the new story forms of the internet age (I'm talking about flash fiction, here). You will find traces of Borges, Marquez, but also a striking originality to Jason Lee Norman's writing. It's not exactly a demanding investment to read, so I suggest you give it a shot. You can get through it in an hour, easy. Norman's a cool new voice that reignite a tradition I thought was long lost.
March 26, 2013
These stories could be told by an imaginative grandparent, regaling attentive children with tall tales that feel so true that it's not until the children are much older that the realize they have been duped.
August 17, 2012
I wrote it so...it's pretty awesome.
Want to Read
May 26, 2012from author
January 1, 2017
A book of poetry cleverly disguised as short stories. Note: I am happy to hear Paul Newman is alive and well in Bolivia.
April 13, 2013
pretty silly so far
January 3, 2013
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of nepotism. I’d say, in fact, that networking (a similar-looking cousin to nepotism) is vital in the publishing industry. It’s the reason we are able present you with such wonderful reviews and introduce you to so many gifted writers through the interviews we post here on LitStack.
I say this as a means to forewarn you. Jason Lee Norman is a contributor at LitStack. But a review of his short story collection Americas isn’t some blatant display of nepotism. In fact, I’ll admit to not being at all responsible for asking Jason to join our staff. (That distinction belongs solely to fellow co-founder Adrienne Crezo).
I will, however, take credit for recognizing amazing talent when I see it. We agreed to review this collection not because Jason is one of our own, but for its own merit and because he’s a gifted, dynamic writer.
As the blurb above indicates, there are, indeed, 22 countries in the Americas and Jason has crafted a story for each. The stories themselves run the gambit, injecting in the reader a cacophony of sensations: treatments to heartbreak, to reality, to the poetically visceral imaginings of the surreal.
But this isn’t a reader’s journey. Bluntly put, in Americas, Jason becomes tour guide, the bearded Master of Ceremony who recants the mad dashes he’s personally made through all the mufti-faceted terrains South and North America has to offer.
There is the “historical vignettes” of Jason’s motherland, Canada, where ties to the land and the love in those lands bonds and separates. There is the nostalgic remembrances of childhood in America and the brilliant magic surrounding and living in the people that populate South America. Really, I’m being disingenuous. Americas isn’t solely a love letter to the travels that Jason has made. It isn’t even a fictionalized version of a travel diary. Simply put, Americas is a collection of experiences, of the magical found in these countries and how those experiences collect to form climatic highs and a cryptic ending.The stories connect, are made real with sharp clarity, in pages finely honed into a powerful collection.
I say this as a means to forewarn you. Jason Lee Norman is a contributor at LitStack. But a review of his short story collection Americas isn’t some blatant display of nepotism. In fact, I’ll admit to not being at all responsible for asking Jason to join our staff. (That distinction belongs solely to fellow co-founder Adrienne Crezo).
I will, however, take credit for recognizing amazing talent when I see it. We agreed to review this collection not because Jason is one of our own, but for its own merit and because he’s a gifted, dynamic writer.
As the blurb above indicates, there are, indeed, 22 countries in the Americas and Jason has crafted a story for each. The stories themselves run the gambit, injecting in the reader a cacophony of sensations: treatments to heartbreak, to reality, to the poetically visceral imaginings of the surreal.
But this isn’t a reader’s journey. Bluntly put, in Americas, Jason becomes tour guide, the bearded Master of Ceremony who recants the mad dashes he’s personally made through all the mufti-faceted terrains South and North America has to offer.
There is the “historical vignettes” of Jason’s motherland, Canada, where ties to the land and the love in those lands bonds and separates. There is the nostalgic remembrances of childhood in America and the brilliant magic surrounding and living in the people that populate South America. Really, I’m being disingenuous. Americas isn’t solely a love letter to the travels that Jason has made. It isn’t even a fictionalized version of a travel diary. Simply put, Americas is a collection of experiences, of the magical found in these countries and how those experiences collect to form climatic highs and a cryptic ending.The stories connect, are made real with sharp clarity, in pages finely honed into a powerful collection.
August 20, 2012
Whimsical, and yes, delightful.
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/08...
More - http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2012/08...
November 2, 2012
Awesome little book. Read my full review at Curbside Splendor: http://www.curbsidesplendor.com/curbs...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews