Ghost Years

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A tribute to the author’s mother Kitty, the gritty Chicago landscape of his youth, and the “ghost years, that time in your life you don’t know won’t never come again.”

Barry Gifford has been writing the story of America in acclaimed novel after acclaimed novel for the last half-century. Almost all of the stories in Ghost Years takes place in the 1950s, examining the lives of women in that period—the suppression, the lack of opportunities, the dependency on men. Following his story collection, Roy’s World, which inspired the documentary directed by Rob Christopher, narrated by Lili Taylor, Matt Dillon and Willem Dafoe, these stories show a childhood in mid-century America filled with innocence, grief, joy and wonder in equal measure.”The way Barry Gifford lets people talk articulates everything about their unfamiliar inner lives, and ours.”—Boston Globe

“Gifford cuts right through the heart of what makes a good novel readable and entertaining. . . . The way Barry Gifford does it, it’s high art.”—Elmore Leonard

“Gifford, a master of the short story and nasty vignette, can sum up in a few words the cruelty, horror, and crushing banality that shape an entire life.”—New York Times Book Review

“Barry Gifford invented his own American vernacular–William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly”—Jonathan Lethem on Sailor & LulaBARRY GIFFORD is the author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages. Gifford began his career as a poet and musician. His most recent prose works are The Roy Stories, Landscape With Traveler: The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves, and Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac. His most recent poetry collection is Imagining Paradise: New and Selected Poems (2012). Gifford lives in the San Francisco area.US

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