Bøger af Barry Gifford

From the award-winning author and screenplay writer, a trio of one-act plays depicting the spooky, strange, and tragic passage of guests through the same New York City hotel room (number 603).“The dialogue has the evocative spareness of Pinter, and [the] control of mood [is] menacing, mesmerizing.” —TIMEThe tangible mystery of these stories is grounded in the peculiar relationships that unfold slowly, producing an unrelenting uncanny atmosphere. In each play, a family member has recently died and the survivors are left to deal with the consequences.In "Tricks" Gifford approaches the psychological territory of Kafka. We meet two men looking for something more than just sex from a prostitute. Are the men two halves of a severed personality?  In "Blackout" Danny and Diane, an Oklahoma couple of the 1930s, cannot move beyond the grief of a personal tragedy. Refusing to accept the death of her son, Diane seeks refuge in low-level deliriums. In "Mrs. Kashfi" a young boy experiences a spooky visitation while his mother voyages into the sea of clairvoyance with a fortune teller.Written for David Lynch's 1993 drama Hotel Room for HBO, two of these stories, "Tricks" and "Blackout" were nominated for the Cable Ace Award.“Gifford’s night people are a strange mix of utter weirdness and bedrock humanity, rampant eccentricity, and absolute individuality. Some things in life are beyond analysis, and Barry Gifford is one of them. —Booklist

A follow up to the book Roy's World, which inspired the documentary directed by Rob Christopher narrated by Lili Taylor, Matt Dillon and Willem Dafoe, this novel is a tribute to his mother Kitty and the gritty Chicago landscape of his youth.This book is about the “ghost years, that time in your life you don’t know won’t never come again,” as Mrs. Cunningham tells Roy and her son, Tommy. Barry Gifford has been writing the story of America in acclaimed novel after acclaimed novel for the last half-century. Almost all of Ghost Years takes place in the 1950s, and Giffort takes on a difficult time in his personal life as he examines the lives of women in that period—the suppression, the lack of opportunities, the dependency on men.

The only oral, composite biography of Jack Kerouac, told by the Beat generation who survived him

Bad girl Perdita Durango and her dealer boyfriend Romeo Dolorosa get their kicks on a journey from Louisiana to Los Angeles that involves santeria rituals and kidnapping.

"A fascinating literary and historical document, the most insightful look at the Beat Generation." -Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties and Going All the WayFirst published in 1978, Jack's Book gives us an intimate look into the life and times of the "King of the Beats." Through the words of the close friends, lovers, artists, and drinking buddies who survived him, writers Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee recount Jack Kerouac's story, from his childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, to his tragic end in Florida at the age of forty-seven. Including anecdotes from an eclectic list of well-known figures such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Gore Vidal, as well as Kerouac's ordinary acquaintances, this groundbreaking oral biography-the first of its kind-presents us with a remarkably insightful portrait of an American legend and the spirit of a generation.

Poems from the acclaimed author of Roy’s World, Wild at Heart, and many other works The first words in Barry Gifford’s new poetry collection say it all—“Here I am wasting time again / writing poems to keep myself company” — doing what he has ever done, surprising his readers in kaleidoscopic prisms of color, turning every breath into a story, and himself into his most colorful character. She stood and walked across the lawnpast the cottage and into the big house.He stayed to watch the last of the sunset,waiting for the flash of green.When it was finally dark and there wasno moon and the fireflies appeared,he got up and began walking toward the house.He loved the Italian word for firefly,lucciola. She was like that, flickeringon and off from moment to moment.As he approached the house, he could hearher singing: Vogliatemi bene, un bene piccolino. It’s so strange, he thought,life’s so fast and time’s too slow.He stopped and watched the fireflies. Or this: In my dream someone asked me ifI remembered Frank JacksonHearing this name brought tearsto my eyes though I’ve neverknown anyone by that name The mystery in these poems lives just beyond the province of words. In a strange way, Barry Gifford’s poems tell a wordless story, freed of the writer’s art. “It’s dangerous to remember / so much, especially for a writer / The temptation to make sense / of it is always there / where you and I / are no longer.” Daily life, family and friends, are much more important here than books. The beauty and elusiveness of women and music are of utmost importance, far more so than literature. As he attests: “I prefer music to poems, words don’tlive the same way—so, listen.” 

A childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s among grifters, show girls, and mob enforcers who embraced the boy and made him who he is.“These stories make for one of the most important and moving American bildungsromans of all time.” —William Boyle, The Southwest Review Roy tells it the way he sees it, shuttled between Chicago to Key West and Tampa, Havana and Jackson MS, usually with his mother Kitty, often in the company of lip-sticked women and fast men. Roy is the muse of Gifford’s hardboiled style, a precocious child, watching the grown-ups try hard to save themselves, only to screw up again and again. He takes it all in, every waft of perfume and cigar smoke, every missed opportunity to do the right thing. And then there are the good things too. A fishing trip with Uncle Buck, a mother’s love, advice from Rudy, Roy’s father: “Roy means king. Be the king of your own country. Don’t depend on anyone to do your thinking for you.” The stories in The Boy Who Ran Away to Sea are together a love letter and a tribute to the childhood experiences that ground a life.       In the Author’s note, Gifford writes,“I have often been asked if I were interested in writing my memoirs or an autobiography. Given that the Roy stories come as close as I care to come regarding certain circumstances, I remain comfortable with their verisimilitude. They all dwell within the boundary of fiction. As I have explained elsewhere, these are stories, I made them up. Roy ages from about five years old to late adolescence. After that, with the exception of a sighting in Veracruz, I have no idea what happened to him.” “The way Barry Gifford lets people talk articulates everything about their unfamiliar inner lives, and ours." —Boston Globe 

Presents a collection of anecdotal reflections that relate many of the experiences that shaped Barry Gifford as a writer. Representative of Gifford's body of work, this volume is divided into three sections: books, film and television, and music. Within these sections, Gifford's best work is showcased.

A tie-in to the new documentary, Roy''s World, directed by Rob Christopher narrated by Lili Taylor, Matt Dillon and Willem Dafoe, these stories comprise one of Barry Gifford''s most enduring works, his homage to the gritty Chicago landscape of his youthBarry Gifford has been writing the story of America in acclaimed novel after acclaimed novel for the last half-century. At the same time, he''s been writing short stories, his "Roy stories," that show America from a different vantage point, a certain mix of innocence and worldliness. Reminiscent of Mark Twain''s Huckleberry Finn and Ernest Hemingway''s Nick Adams stories, Gifford''s Roy stories amount to the coming-of-age novel he never wrote, and are one of his most important literary achievements--time-pieces that preserve the lost worlds of 1950s Chicago and the American South, the landscape of postwar America seen through the lens of a boy''s steady gaze. The twists and tragedies of the adult world seem to float by like curious flotsam, like the show girls from the burlesque house next door to Roy''s father''s pharmacy who stop by when they need a little help, or Roy''s mom and the husbands she weds and then sheds after Roy''s Jewish mobster father''s early death. Life throws Roy more than the usual curves, but his intelligence and curiosity shape them into something unforeseen, while Roy''s complete lack of self-pity allow the stories to seem to tell themselves.

The first Western noir by Barry Gifford, "a killer fuckin'' writer." (David Lynch)Based on historical events in 1851, this Western noir novella traces the struggle of the first integrated Native American tribe to establish themselves on the North American continent. After escaping the Oklahoma relocation camps they had been placed in following their forced evacuation from Florida, the Seminole Indians banded with fugitive slaves from the American South to fulfill the vision of their leader, Coyote, to establish their land in Mexico''s Nacimiento. The Mexican government allowed them initially to settle in Mexico near the Texas-Mexico border, in exchange for guarding nearby villages from bands of raiding Comanches and Apaches.      On the Texas side of the border, a romance begins between Teresa, daughter of former Texas Ranger and slavehunter Cass Dupuy, and Sunny, son of the great Seminole chief Osceola. Teresa''s father, a violent man, has heard about the fugitive slaves settled on the other side of the border and plans to profit from them. As the story progresses, multiple actors come into play, forming alliances or declaring each other enemy, as the Seminoles struggle to fulfill captain Coyote''s corazonada to find their own land. Black Sun Rising is a poetic story which brings to light a little-known but important chapter in American and Mexican history and will be simultaneously published in Mexico by Almadía. One of America''s greatest novelists and a tireless innovator whose oeuvre spans fiction, autobiography, oral history, and short fiction, Barry Gifford is now venturing into the genre of Western, breaking new ground by infusing it with his signature noir style.

"The Romeo and Juliet of the South" are back in this new edition of the internationally best-selling Sailor and Lula novels, now including for the first time the culminating novel, The Up-Down, by American master Barry Gifford."Barry Gifford invented his own American vernacular--William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly--to forge the stealth-epic of Sailor & Lula"--Jonathan LethemHere for the first time in print together are all eight of the books that comprise the saga of Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune, "the Romeo and Juliet of the South": Wild at Heart, Perdita Durango, Sailor''s Holiday, Sultans of Africa, Consuelo''s Kiss, Bad Day for the Leopard Man, The Imagination of the Heart, and The Up-Down.

Do the Blind Dream? shows Gifford at the height of his powers, navigating with ease the new, more fragmented imaginative landscape of morning-after America. Gifford seems to have anticipated themes that suddenly are recognizable everywhere: the fragility of identity; the power of coincidence; the illusion of a secure tomorrow.In contrast to his often nightmarish, satirical, groundbreaking novels of the 1990s-Wild at Heart, Perdita Durango, and Night People among them-Do the Blind Dream? continues in the tender and deeply introspective vein revealed in two recent works: Gifford's memoir The Phantom Father (named a New York Times Notable Book), and the award-winning novella Wyoming. From the intimate, stylistically daring examination of the darkest secrets in the history of an Italian family, to the terrible but often beautiful fears and discoveries of childhood, to the sardonic, desperate confusion of adult life, Do the Blind Dream? reveals an exceptionally versatile, highly tuned sensibility.

For a tour of noir cinema this handbook is the perfect companion and Barry Gifford is an ideal guide. His choice selection of films exposes the menacing, moody, and oftentimes violent underbelly of this dark movie genre that occupies a favourite niche in American popular culture.

Charts the riotous and stormy lives of Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune - the horribly likeable, sex-driven, star-crossed lovers immortalised in David Lynch's movie "Wild at Heart".