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Problems with People: Stories
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Published:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2014
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Description
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedarsan extraordinary collection of short stories spanning across America, Nepal, South Africa, and Germany that explores the mysteries of love and our complex desire for connection.
“First-rate.... Humorous, ironic, and satiric.... Each story is realistic, bordering on surrealistic.” —The Boston Globe

These stories showcase Guterson’s gifts for psychological nuance, emotional suspense, and evocation of the natural world. In these pages, we meet, among others, a lonely landlord trying to reach out to his tenants; a middle-aged widower looking for love online; an American Jew traveling to Berlin to confront his haunted past. Celebrating the surprises that lurk within the dramas of our daily lives, Problems with People marks the return of a contemporary American master to the form that launched his literary career.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
06/03/2014
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780385351492
ASIN:
B00H6JFIFK
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

David Guterson. (2014). Problems with People: Stories. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

David Guterson. 2014. Problems With People: Stories. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

David Guterson, Problems With People: Stories. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

MLA Citation (style guide)

David Guterson. Problems With People: Stories. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Updated:
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      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Guterson, David
      • bioText: DAVID GUTERSON is the author of five novels: Snow Falling on Cedars, which won the PEN/Faulkner and the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award; East of the Mountains; Our Lady of the Forest, a New York TimesNotable Book and a Los Angeles Times and Seattle Post- Intelligencer Best Book of the Year; The Other; and Ed King. He is also the author of a previous story collection,The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind; a poetry collection, Songs for a Summons; and two works of nonfiction, Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense and Descent: A Memoir of Madness. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Washington State.
      • name: David Guterson
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publishDate
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title
Problems with People
fullDescription
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedarsan extraordinary collection of short stories spanning across America, Nepal, South Africa, and Germany that explores the mysteries of love and our complex desire for connection.
“First-rate.... Humorous, ironic, and satiric.... Each story is realistic, bordering on surrealistic.” —The Boston Globe

These stories showcase Guterson’s gifts for psychological nuance, emotional suspense, and evocation of the natural world. In these pages, we meet, among others, a lonely landlord trying to reach out to his tenants; a middle-aged widower looking for love online; an American Jew traveling to Berlin to confront his haunted past. Celebrating the surprises that lurk within the dramas of our daily lives, Problems with People marks the return of a contemporary American master to the form that launched his literary career.
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: John Harding, Daily Mail (UK)
      • content: "Excellent . . . What's striking about Guterson's new collection is the consistent brilliance of the set-ups. Each of the ten stories fascinates in a different way, and the main problem is trying to resist devouring these crisply written morsels in one delirious binge."
      • premium: False
      • source: Carmela Ciuraru, The New York Times
      • content: "Guterson's second story collection displays simplicity even in its titles. Set mostly in the Pacific Northwest but also touching down in South Africa, Germany and Nepal, these 10 spare stories feature characters, mostly nameless and in midlife, trying to connect with family members, lovers and strangers . . . Throughout, intimacy is problematic: elusive, startling and awkward. More often than not, the author's impulse toward the austere--both thematically and stylistically--proves effective."
      • premium: False
      • source: Joseph Peschel, The Boston Globe
      • content: "First-rate . . . The stories in Guterson's second collection portray men and women who experience some sort of people problem. Whether it's loneliness, anxiety, or depression, they suffer a paradoxical fear of and desire for human contact and intimacy . . . Some of the tales involve burdensome family members; others a new lover or the possibility of one; one has a racial theme. Painfully humorous, ironic, and satiric, each story is realistic, bordering on surrealistic; they're well-written and well crafted . . . A collection worth reading for its portraits of and insights into personhood and its problems."
      • premium: False
      • source: Publishers Weekly
      • content: "Succinct, ambitious . . . People struggle to connect with each other in these 10 stories from the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. Some return to Guterson's customary Pacific Northwest, but elsewhere he ranges abroad, with settings including Kathmandu, Berlin and South Africa. Though Guterson's characters differ in their ages, locations, and worries, all of their stories turn on the thin lines that separate friendship from acquaintance, and the strange from the familiar . . . Guterson reminds us of the boundless potential of everyday encounters."
      • premium: False
      • source: Donna Bettencourt, Library Journal (starred review)
      • content: "Deeply affecting . . . A strong sense of anonymity and isolation connects the characters in this collection . . . Missed signals, isolation, distancing oneself from social contact--all describe the emotional core of Guterson's narratives. A haunting collection from a thoughtful storyteller."
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        March 3, 2014
        People struggle to connect with each other in this succinct but ambitious collection of 10 stories from the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. Some return to Guterson’s customary Pacific Northwestern milieu, but elsewhere he ranges abroad, with settings including Katmandu, Berlin, and South Africa. “Paradise” observes a man and a woman struggling through the awkwardness of their first few dates, while in “Tenant,” a landlord obsesses over a new renter whom he has never met. “Politics” explores the superficial yet fraught relationship between a beggar and those he solicits, and “Krassavitseh” follows a father and son as they navigate Holocaust memorials in Germany with an enigmatic tour guide. Though Guterson’s characters differ in their ages, locations, and worries, all of their stories turn on the thin lines that separate friendship from acquaintance, and the strange from the familiar. While the stories lack depth, they gain resonance from Guterson’s eagerness to remind us of the boundless potential of everyday encounters. Agent: Georges Borchardt, Georges Borchardt Inc.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        May 1, 2014
        Some of the best stories in this uneven collection suggest a return to form for a writer better known for his novels.Guterson's first story collection in 15 years should appeal to fans of his debut novel (Snow Falling on Cedars, 1994) who might have found the dark, antic humor of his most recent one (Ed King, 2011) jarring. Many of these stories concern the awkwardness of intimacy, how uncomfortable it can be-particularly in the Internet age, which has had such a profound effect on how people understand their own lives and each other. The first story, "Paradise," sets the tone and theme; it concerns two middle-aged people traveling to consummate a relationship that began through an online dating service. They barely know each other except for the narratives they have conjured, and the unnamed man has particular concerns: "He told her he didn't know what would happen in bed. He said he hadn't slept with anyone but his wife for twenty-six years-then add on the six months since she'd died of a heart attack while in the middle of leaving him for someone new." The woman ultimately tells her story, which casts her in a different light than he had imagined, in a tale that resists sentimentality or pat resolution. Many of the rest feature similar difficulties in connecting: the landlord and the title character of "Tenant" (whose interplay is restricted to email and bank transfers until they finally meet in person); the adult brother and sister in "Pilanesberg" (he visits her in Africa, where she is dying of cancer). Many of the stories hit similar notes, in which self-conscious characters discover that "no matter what you did, you were wrong."The return to the Pacific Northwest and introspective characters finds the author striking familiar, responsive chords.

        COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        May 1, 2014
        Whether it's the utter disdain a successful son feels for his nattering mother or the unavoidable anguish an elderly father experiences at not being able to reunite with his peripatetic son, missed connections often take center stage in award-winning novelist Guterson's (Ed King, 2011) second short story collection. In 10 perceptive tales, he explores the monumental and circumstantial episodes that form the underpinnings of daily life.There are petty jealousies and niggling insecurities, long-held grievances and newly minted outrages. There are memories that blur when the past and present collide, conjuring up images of good times and bad for fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and strangers. Through them all, Guterson's protagonists confront life's challenges with something like aplomb, if not outright skill, and in doing so, often uncover unsuspected silver linings in otherwise darkly cloudy situations. While most stories are set primarily within the familiar landscape of Guterson's native Northwest, several venture farther afield to Germany, Nepal, and South Africa to further highlight the universality of emotional connectivity. Guterson is celebrated for his deeply atmospheric novels, and his electrifying short fiction is equally expressive.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        January 1, 2014

        PEN/Faulkner Award winner Guterson revisits the Pacific Northwest setting of his beloved Snow Falling on Cedars, though he also hotfoots it across America, then travels on to Nepal, South Africa, and Germany.

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from February 1, 2014

        A dispirited quality connects the characters in this second story collection from Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars), giving each such a strong sense of anonymity and isolation that the author avoids naming them in most instances. In the opening piece, "Paradise," a sixtysomething couple who meet through an online dating site struggle to ignite their new relationship at a romantic lodge but fail when the woman talks about a former lover on into the night. In one of the strongest stories, "Krassavitseh," a father and son on an emotional Jewish tour of Berlin to revisit the Jewish quarter where the father lived in the 1930s, find their guide also has a connection to the unthinkable horrors in Germany's wartime past. Retirement is not going well for the narrator of "Shadow" because he has developed short-term memory loss, a condition that causes him to miss a plane connection to see his son. "Photograph" depicts a husband and wife grieving over their grown son's drowning death, but the wife can only blame the husband because of a duck-hunting trip when the boy was 12 years old. VERDICT Missed signals, isolation, distancing oneself from social contact--all describe the emotional core of Guterson's deeply affecting narratives. A haunting collection from a thoughtful storyteller. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/13.]--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        February 1, 2014

        A dispirited quality connects the characters in this second story collection from Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars), giving each such a strong sense of anonymity and isolation that the author avoids naming them in most instances. In the opening piece, "Paradise," a sixtysomething couple who meet through an online dating site struggle to ignite their new relationship at a romantic lodge but fail when the woman talks about a former lover on into the night. In one of the strongest stories, "Krassavitseh," a father and son on an emotional Jewish tour of Berlin to revisit the Jewish quarter where the father lived in the 1930s, find their guide also has a connection to the unthinkable horrors in Germany's wartime past. Retirement is not going well for the narrator of "Shadow" because he has developed short-term memory loss, a condition that causes him to miss a plane connection to see his son. "Photograph" depicts a husband and wife grieving over their grown son's drowning death, but the wife can only blame the husband because of a duck-hunting trip when the boy was 12 years old. VERDICT Missed signals, isolation, distancing oneself from social contact--all describe the emotional core of Guterson's deeply affecting narratives. A haunting collection from a thoughtful storyteller. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/13.]--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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“First-rate.... Humorous, ironic, and satiric.... Each story is realistic, bordering on surrealistic.” —The Boston Globe

These stories showcase Guterson’s gifts for psychological nuance, emotional suspense, and evocation of the natural world. In these pages, we meet, among others, a lonely landlord trying to reach out to his tenants; a middle-aged widower looking for love online; an American Jew traveling to Berlin to confront his haunted past. Celebrating the surprises that lurk within the dramas of our daily lives, Problems with People marks the return of a contemporary American master to the form that launched his literary career.
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