Bøger af Gladys Swan

A Dark Gamble, a Western epic inspired by the great epic of Gilgamesh, is set in New Mexico during the era when gold and silver were being discovered and prospectors, miners and ranchers were pouring into the territory, the local Apaches consequently being hunted down and displaced. The novel is an attempt to explore an aspect of the American past, with its roots in an untamed land and the uneasy transition to the modern world. The action takes place in the town of Destiny, which shoots up when gold is discovered in the region. The story is told by a narrator who has heard tales of Gil Weston and Jack Cameron since his youth, men who still engage his imagination of those around him. Out of his own fascination and curiosity, he feels compelled to take up their story himself as part of his own quest for an understanding of the past and a meaning for his own life.

The stories in this book have been selected from the six previous collections of short fiction, as well as from recent work, Gladys Swan has published in that genre over the past four decades. Although she also has published novels, poetry, and essays, she finds that she cannot do without the short story-"it is such a beautiful form. I love the challenges it presents in dealing with characters and situations that light upon the cusp of the moment and which must be handled with an eye to economy and unity of effect."

As Chloride, a dying New Mexican mining town, whirls toward a rendezvous with truth, its people find themselves precariously balanced between a lost past of blood-deep spirituality and an unknowable, terrifying future, between the world of drama and the drama of the world. A filmmaker trying to turn his disillusionment into truth; a once celebrated film star who disappears; a look-alike who takes her place; a trickster who enjoys the chaos he creates around him are all part of the play. In this eerie, beautifully crafted novel, Gladys Swan presents an impressionistic palimpsest of myth and modem life. The present is revealed as only a play of light and shadow over a ghost dance that-tenu¬ously-ensures the world's continued exis¬tence. Part history, part myth, part meditation on truth and illusion, the novel reveals a kaleidoscope of plots and subplots, each refracted through the perceptions-the voices-of a cast of characters as intriguing as the Southwest itself. Ghost Dance: A Play of Voices is the second novel in a trilogy that includes A Dark Gamble and Ancestors. A Dark Gamble is available from Serving House Books, and Ancestors is forthcoming. Nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award

A small rag-tag circus/carnival breaks down in the desert in southern New Mexico after a dust storm. Various members of the troupe begin to pull out-this latest disaster the last straw. Those now left have been faithful followers of Dusty, the owner, together with his long-suffering wife, Alta, former trapeze artists, with their dream of creating a show greater than The Greatest Show on Earth, a giant celebration at the heart of the city. Those left have nowhere else to go: Donovan, a giant; Curran, a midget: Billy Bigelow, a magician-cum-handyman and electrician. Into this scene of general disarray, Dusty brings Amazing Grace, who dances with snakes, and the Kid, who might be her brother. She is the one, Dusty is convinced, who will change their luck.

In this chapbook, you will find the first chapters of Carnival for the Gods, and the four novels that form a sequence from Gladys Swan's comic fantasy, first published in the Vintage Contemporaries Series. The World of Carnival continues with its original inhabitants and their struggles against the odds: Alta and Dusty, who dream big; the midget Curran, who undertakes a journey at the behest of the acrobat Elise, whose son has gone mad (Small Wonder); Amazing Grace, whose talents as a performer bring gasps from her audience, lead her to the challenge of creating herself (Dancing with Snakes); the Kid, who, after a long search, sets out to find the Seventh City, picking up along the way a melancholy Jew, who grew up there (The Dream Seekers). And, finally, a return to Alta, who finds herself drawn back to the circus to follow another set of dreams (Down to Earth). The series of novels explores the relations between life and art, reality and illusion, the openness to possibility and the capacity for the renewal of energies within a culture. It is the writer's major work, and it is her dream that the sequence may one day be published.

In Ancestors, Hawkins, a man adrift, finds himself in a Native American homeland called Chaco Canyon, a place of relics haunted by history. He is besieged by voices revealing memories of other lives, including those of his immediate family, truths he had never known: "Like something out of a dream. He could see it, those stone dwellings high on the cliff, speaking of those who had been there who knows when. And who were they? Ancestors, the voice said . . ." Hawkins learns the painful histories of the generations of his origins, who he is, and the quest he must fulfill in spite of the obstacles in his path and temptation to give in and run from the challenges facing him. Ancestors completes Gladys Swan's Southwestern trilogy, following Ghost Dance and A Dark Gamble, novels also available from Serving House Books.

These eleven compelling stories reveal the interplay and varying hues of two basic elements of human experience - memory and desire. Gladys Swan's characters are frequently forced to shed their illusions as they struggle to shape their lives.

In this eerie, beautifully crafted novel, Gladys Swan presents an impressionistic palimpsest of myth and modern life, in which the present is revealed as only a play of light and shadow over a ghost dance that - tenuously - ensures the world's continued existence.