New World: Tales

by Russell Banks

Presents a gathering of ten tales, religious and funny, that dramatize and explore the process and progress of self-transcendence

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Russell Banks was a member of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He has written fiction, and more recently, non-fiction, with Dreaming up America. His main works include the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter, and Affliction. The latter two novels were each made into feature films in 1997.

Reviews

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story collection is divided into two halves, and it is this division that gives me pause to recommending it with anything more than a "meh" for anyone who is looking to read Russell Banks. The first half of the collection is brilliant and Banks at his best, including a nascent version of Hamilton Stark called "The Conversion." However, unlike Hamilton Stark, which concerns itself more with the author of the fictional account of miscreant Hamilton Stark, "The Conversion" is more a look into how someone could become like Stark is in the novel.

The second half of the collection is not so successful, as Banks dips his toe into historical fiction that sometimes comes off as a book report rather than fiction. There is an obvious linkage of the title story to Banks' next novel The Book of Jamaica, but again, I feel that the historical fiction of "The New World" falls short of Banks' best work.