Jo Ann Beard

Uusi kirjailija Keltaisessa kirjastossa!Hurja, riipaiseva ja väliin liki sietämättömän jännittävä. Jo Ann Beardin Juhlapäiviä-novellikokoelma särkee paitsi genrerajat myös lukijan sydämen.Jo Ann Beard yhdistää kirjallisen taituruuden muistin voimaan ja reportaasien armottomaan suoruuteen. Hän vangitsee kertomuksiinsa jokapäiväisen elämän koko kirjon, pienistä valonpilkahduksista hetkiin, jolloin elämä ja kuolema ovat vaakalaudalla. Beardin teksteissä intensiivinen toden tuntu vie lukijan suoraan tapahtumien ja tunnetilojen ytimeen."Beard tekee kunniaa ihmisyyden kauneudelle, pyhyydelle ja koomisuudelle." – Sigrid Nunez”Omintakeinen ja pahaenteinen vaan ei synkkä. Beardin pisteliäs huumori ja järkähtämätön myötätunto tekevät hänestä parasta seuraa.” – Jonathan FranzenYhdysvaltalainen Jo Ann Beard (s. 1955) on kirjailija ja esseisti. Hänen töitään on julkaistu laajalti mm. The New Yorkerissa, Tin Housessa ja lukuisissa antologioissa. Hänelle on myönnetty useita arvostettuja palkintoja sekä Guggenheim-säätiön apuraha. Sarah Lawrence Collegessa New Yorkissa opettava Beard on pitkään ollut kirjallisten piirien lemmikki, joka vasta nyt on nousemassa suuren yleisön tietoisuuteen.

An Irish Times Book of the Year 2023 'An extraordinary achievement' Mary Gaitskill 'In the hands of a maestro, less can be so much more' Independent Cheri has been living with cancer for many years. Now, she is dying. As she navigates the final weeks of her life, and takes charge of the manner of her death, she is flooded with childhood memories, and returns to the present with a renewed appreciation for the brilliance of life around her: the autumn has never been so beautiful, her daughters never as radiant. Brave, incredibly strong and deeply loved, Cheri makes one last nerve-wracking journey across the country with her girls and her friends, knowing relief waits welcoming as a frozen lake on the other side. A masterpiece of fiction and memory, Cheri is a heart-breaking but glorious celebration of all the moments of beauty and pain that make an individual life, right up until its very last moments.

'Too good... You should read her and not look away' Anne Enright, Guardian 'The stories are essays, the essays are stories. Even when they are not literally true, they contain the kind of truth that great fiction thrives on' The Times 'Literature's best kept secret' Independent Weaving a complex tapestry drawn from interviews, anecdotes, moments from Beard's own life, and sheer imagination, these extraordinary pieces embody the hospitality of spectacular writing: they are spaces you fall into and are reluctant to leave. From the intimate drama of everyday life - school crushes, dog clinics, divorce - to the terror and excitement of a fox lurking by a campsite or a murderer in your home, Beard flawlessly distils what it means to live deeply as we hurtle through wonder and grief, love and heartbreak. Bringing together pieces from Beard's first collection, The Boys of My Youth, and Festival Days, which was published two decades later, The Collected Works showcases Jo Ann Beard's impressive breadth, quiet brilliance, and timeless prose.

A New York Times Notable BookA New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA Boston Globe and LitHub Best Book of the YearWhen "The Fourth State of Matter," her now famous piece about a workplace massacre at the University of Iowa was published in The New Yorker, Jo Ann Beard immediately became one of the most influential writers in America, forging a path for a new generation of young authors willing to combine the dexterity of fiction with the rigors of memory and reportage, and in the process extending the range of possibility for the essay form.Now, with Festival Days, Beard brings us the culmination of her groundbreaking work. In these nine pieces, she captures both the small, luminous moments of daily existence and those instants when life and death hang in the balance, ranging from the death of a beloved dog to a relentlessly readable account of a New York artist trapped inside a burning building, as well as two triumphant, celebrated pieces of short fiction.Here is an unforgettable collection destined to be embraced and debated by readers and writers, teachers and students. Anchored by the title piece--a searing journey through India that brings into focus questions of mortality and love-Festival Days presents Beard at the height of her powers, using her flawless prose to reveal all that is tender and timeless beneath the way we live now.

Since the publication of her groundbreaking collection, The Boys of My Youth, Jo Ann Beard has been heralded as a master of the autobiographical essay, a form that has recently gained popularity with the works of Leslie Jamison, Eula Biss, Esme Weijun Wang, and Roxane Gay, among others.Now, Beard returns with nine new nonfiction stories in which she investigates love and betrayal, grief and survival in the precise, searingly personal language for which she is beloved.In these nine essays, Beard captures both the quietly luminous moments of daily existence and those of life-and-death decision: a man jumps from a burning building to save his own life; a woman fights off a home invader with only a shovel; and in the title, novella-length story, the narrator at once confronts the last moments of a dear friend and the devastating betrayal of the man who has been her longtime companion.With exquisite language and unflinching observation, Festival Days captures the pain and exhilaration of our human experience, and shows a seminal author at the pinnacle of her talent.

The "utterly compelling, uncommonly beautiful" collection of personal essays (Newsweek) that established Jo Ann Beard as one of the leading writers of her generation. Cousins, mothers, sisters, dolls, dogs, best friends: these are the fixed points in Jo Ann Beard's universe, the constants that remain when the boys of her youth -- and then men who replace them -- are gone. This widely praised collection of autobiographical essays summons back, with astonishing grace and power, moments of childhood epiphany as well as the cataclysms of adult life: betrayal, divorce, death. The Boys of My Youth heralded the arrival of an immensely gifted and influential writer and its essays remain surprising, original, and affecting today. "A luminous, funny, heartbreaking book of essays about life and its defining moments." --Harper's Bazaar