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Charity
With Charity, Mark Richard again secures the distinction of poet laureate of the orphaned poor, the broken, the deceived, and the unrelieved. In stylistic brilliance, he renders their conditions with grace and compassion, and redeems and transports their tragedy with wicked humor.
In the much-anthologized "The Birds for Christmas," two hospitalized boys beg a night nurse to let them watch Hitchcock's classic thriller film on television, believing it will relieve their Yuletide loneliness. "Gentleman's Agreement" is a classic father-son story of fear and the violence of love. In "Memorial Day," a bayou boy learns the lessons of living from Death himself, a fortune cookie-eating phantom who claims to be "a people person." From charity ward to outrageous beach bungalow, Richard visits the overlooked corners of America, making them unforgettably visible.
Richard has been rightly compared to Faulkner for his language and to Flannery O'Connor for his stark moral vision, but his force and sensibility remain his own. Charity is a powerful reading experience, a true accomplishment in an already stunning literary career.
In the much-anthologized "The Birds for Christmas," two hospitalized boys beg a night nurse to let them watch Hitchcock's classic thriller film on television, believing it will relieve their Yuletide loneliness. "Gentleman's Agreement" is a classic father-son story of fear and the violence of love. In "Memorial Day," a bayou boy learns the lessons of living from Death himself, a fortune cookie-eating phantom who claims to be "a people person." From charity ward to outrageous beach bungalow, Richard visits the overlooked corners of America, making them unforgettably visible.
Richard has been rightly compared to Faulkner for his language and to Flannery O'Connor for his stark moral vision, but his force and sensibility remain his own. Charity is a powerful reading experience, a true accomplishment in an already stunning literary career.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Mark Richard
52 books87 followersMark Richard is an American short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and poet. He is the author of two award-winning short story collections, The Ice at the Bottom of the World and Charity, a bestselling novel, Fishboy, and House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 7, 2024
You can tell Richard is a fan of southern gothic and that he has some Faulkner and Flannery O’ Connor blood coursing through his veins. This is pitch-black, hillbilly noir, presented in eleven twisted stories, focusing mainly on outcasts and the downtrodden. There are some stand out tales to be found here but my favorite has to be “The Birds For Christmas”, which feature 2 young boys stuck in a hospital for the holidays, begging the nurses to let them watch Hitchcock’s The Birds, on Christmas Eve. Of course, these stories and Richard’s style of writing my not be for everyone, but if you don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty, give this one a shot.
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December 11, 2012"The Birds for Christmas," damn. "Fuck Frosty," Michael Christian said to me. "I see that a hunrett times. I want to see "The Birds," man. I want to see those birds get all up in them people's hair. That's some real Christmas TV to me." An all-time Christmas story. Don't want to wait for ILL? Read it here: http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0...
April 10, 2007
Though he later ran off to write for "Party of Five", Mark Richard was the Ric Flair of literary short fiction for a while. Much like Flair, Richard has been known to fly in jet planes and steal kisses.
July 21, 2021
So often destitution and desperation are rendered as "realistic" and "human" which is, by my account, just a cover for uninspired aesthetics that privilege false objectivism as opposed to giving space to a unique perspective.
I think that's a long way of saying, books that focus on real-life poverty are often fakey, overtly sentimental, moralistic, and banal.
None of these descriptors apply to Charity. A surreal and haunting achievement that understands that real desperation is surreal, that existing on the margins of society is an existence away from common aesthetics and into something far stranger.
From the wards of the title story to the desolate beaches, docks, and dunes of several others, Richard brings us toward communion with the country's underbelly. He rubs at the raw nerves of fate. He finds serendipity and violence all tangled up in unpredictable tragedy. And, in the final story, he gives us a figure of death who is sympathetic and most certainly misunderstood.
I think that's a long way of saying, books that focus on real-life poverty are often fakey, overtly sentimental, moralistic, and banal.
None of these descriptors apply to Charity. A surreal and haunting achievement that understands that real desperation is surreal, that existing on the margins of society is an existence away from common aesthetics and into something far stranger.
From the wards of the title story to the desolate beaches, docks, and dunes of several others, Richard brings us toward communion with the country's underbelly. He rubs at the raw nerves of fate. He finds serendipity and violence all tangled up in unpredictable tragedy. And, in the final story, he gives us a figure of death who is sympathetic and most certainly misunderstood.
April 8, 2025
I would have rated it five stars, but I read a couple of the longer stories in noisy rooms, and I lost the thread. The thread is so important in these stories, because of their unrealness. The sentences are weird and dry and funny like a Robert Ashley opera. Overall most of these stories left me with a strange and powerful image/feeling/left me in a state of oddness. The hyperrealistic detail and the consistently brown-colored language combined with the overall unbelievability of the action created a strangeness that hit me close to home.
FAV STORIES:
Gentlemen's Agreement:(1st sentence)"The child had been warned."
Where Blue is Blue
The Birds for Christmas:(1st sentence)"We wanted The Birds for Christmas.
Charming 1 br, fr. dr. wndws, quiet, safe. Fee.
Plymouth Rock:(1st sentence)"I've seen the future of law enforcement in this country, and its my brother Douglas."
FAV STORIES:
Gentlemen's Agreement:(1st sentence)"The child had been warned."
Where Blue is Blue
The Birds for Christmas:(1st sentence)"We wanted The Birds for Christmas.
Charming 1 br, fr. dr. wndws, quiet, safe. Fee.
Plymouth Rock:(1st sentence)"I've seen the future of law enforcement in this country, and its my brother Douglas."
December 28, 2024
I'm pretty impressed with Mr. Richard's prose and style, but I guess a five star review is out of the question since I found a couple of the stories utterly forgettable and a couple TOO gritty for my usually tough palate. The title story was too surreal for me. However, the opening story, "Gentleman's Agreement" hooked me, and the closing story, "Memorial Day," left me heartbroken. My favorite would have to be "Tunga Tuggo, Lingua Dingua," a tour-de-force of rollicking, blistering, hilarious, technicolor language. There are quite a few broken (literally) children throughout the collection, so be prepared.
January 8, 2025
En el viaje a la cdmx para ir a escuchar a metallica me fui de compras con Rafa al pendulo de la condesa. Ahi nos encontramos 4 libros de la editorial dirty works que la gourda me dijo estaba recomendando el velazquez. Los compramos todos a ciegas mitad y mitad sin saber nada de nada mas que la edicion esta poca madre. Este man del Mark es un crack de la literatura rara de estados unidos. Cuentos cortos con ese ingrediente gonzo que me encanta. Los quiero todos.
May 10, 2020
4.2 stars. Mark Richard's fiction is great. I wish he wrote more of it. This collection has a few odd outliers, but as a whole, it's great. The characters populating the book are great.
Want to read
June 5, 2025Cutting is for The Birds for Christmas
By Mark Richard
By Mark Richard
March 30, 2012
How I wanted to love this book... I wanted Mark Richard to capture me completely the way he did with "The Ice at the Bottom of the World", but alas, this was not the case.
Still, I ill say that this is the type of book that makes you want to become a writer. It's filled with stories that make you want to put pen to paper and see what comes out.
The problem lies in its unevenness in both content and story execution. Some of the stories here seemed only half baked and not fully formed.
I think "Gentleman's agreement" and "Where Blue is Blue" are wonderful openers (and I think the latter may be one of the best shorts I've read in a long time), but the book does not maintain their quality.
Also, I find that the thrust of Richard's tales seemed different from previous work. While I commend an author branching out, here I felt as if he had just finished reading "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson and was affected by that content. I won't say he was copying or aping Johnson, by I'll say that I saw and heard that kind of voice and sentiment coming out of Richard's prose, and that was disappointing.
Overall, not a horrible waste of my time, but had I started with this book instead of "Ice at the bottom..." I may not have been as keen to read more from Richards.
Still, I am interested enough to search for his next book, so that is still a compliment.
Still, I ill say that this is the type of book that makes you want to become a writer. It's filled with stories that make you want to put pen to paper and see what comes out.
The problem lies in its unevenness in both content and story execution. Some of the stories here seemed only half baked and not fully formed.
I think "Gentleman's agreement" and "Where Blue is Blue" are wonderful openers (and I think the latter may be one of the best shorts I've read in a long time), but the book does not maintain their quality.
Also, I find that the thrust of Richard's tales seemed different from previous work. While I commend an author branching out, here I felt as if he had just finished reading "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson and was affected by that content. I won't say he was copying or aping Johnson, by I'll say that I saw and heard that kind of voice and sentiment coming out of Richard's prose, and that was disappointing.
Overall, not a horrible waste of my time, but had I started with this book instead of "Ice at the bottom..." I may not have been as keen to read more from Richards.
Still, I am interested enough to search for his next book, so that is still a compliment.
March 4, 2008
Wonderful author! It's a short collection, but all the stories are quite visceral and surprising. Maybe even grotesque in some sense, but the writing is sparse so it isn't overmuch. Great narrative and unusual style. I especially loved the first story "Gentleman's agreement" and the last, "Memorial Day" -- Richard seems to be at his storytelling best when he's handling youth.
February 21, 2010
These are definitely some unusual stories. The narrative voice as well as the stories themselves are a little offbeat, original to Richard. Very enjoyable. He has a good grasp of the voice for his child characters in the stories in the collection that involve such characters. An enjoyable collection to read.
October 22, 2009
Mark Richard has such a marvelous relationship with language -his descriptions are a little out of the ordinary but so evokative. so bang on. his short story, Gentlemen's Agreement is likely my favourite short story of all time.
October 27, 2010
really more like a three and a half cause some of the stories are a bit flat while trying to be strange yet well developed. however the stories that are good are like super-original, flannery o'connor, anthologize-me type good. still well worth the read just for the over adjectified stories.
December 7, 2007
"Gentleman's Agreement," and "Where Blue is Blue" are two of my favorite stories ever.
April 8, 2011
Mark Richard is so good. Why isn't he more popular?
July 3, 2011
Great read. Bold storytelling, great language.
December 30, 2013
Mark Richard's first collection was easily one of the greatest things I've ever read, which makes the inane failure of this collection all the more disappointing.
May 14, 2015
Captured here are the darker stories we like to overlook. Wine instead of grape juice.
November 29, 2015
I just spent 150 pages wondering where Mark Richard has been my whole life. This is a beautiful book.
July 9, 2008
This man writes amazing stories.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews