With a spare eloquence reminiscent of Hemingway and an insistence on divine grace even in the darkest circumstances, Lawrence Dorr writes short stories as powerful as they are profound. The fifteen ne
With a spare eloquence reminiscent of Hemingway and an insistence on divine grace even in the darkest circumstances, Lawrence Dorr writes short stories as powerful as they are profound.
The fifteen new and selected stories here, stylistically and substantively rich, follow a central character through episodes reflecting Dorr's own eventful life: his childhood in Hungary; wartime experiences on the Russian front; hardship and poverty; the death of family and friends. With a subtle depth of feeling and a clear, mature voice, Dorr writes of refugees and survivors, and of the social, cultural, and religious chasms that separate them. The book's title story, as an example, follows Dorr's protagonist through Salzburg, Austria, as he struggles to survive both physically and spiritually in the aftermath of World War II.
Each of these stories has its own plot, but the book as a whole offers a subtle yet powerful story line that underscores the protagonist's deepening sense of life's meaning and grace. Dorr's literary odyssey is a pilgrim's progress: from trials and anguish come hard-won understanding and hope. While war and pain bring loss — of friends, of family, of faith, of God — slowly a new life, a new faith, and a new love emerge, and with them a deep peace.
Paul Gaston
"These riveting stories, linked with novelistic unity and texture, spring from the genius of a Hungarian writer who himself was seared in the cauldron of the war and repression that he renders here so vividly. As his stories unfold, their protagonist escapes first to England and then to the American South, where he finds security and serenity. Memories of his lost youth and his struggles for survival, however, constantly emerge to shape the ways he experiences his new life, reminding us of Faulkner's sense of the past in the present. Indeed, though he writes with the sensibility of eastern Europe's best writers, Lawrence Dorr is also a Southern writer with a sure understanding of irony and burden. He melds two traditions to give us stories of distinction that are uniquely his own — stories that may enrich us all."
Dale Brown
"Lawrence Dorr should not be overlooked in our talk of masters of the short-story business. He sees very well indeed."
Corbin Scott Carnell
"I think of Lawrence Dorr as a Christian Hemingway. He brings the same masculine strength and intense emotion to his storytelling without the slightest hint of sentimentality. Best of all, he is a committed Christian whose deep faith informs his fiction."
Michael Karounos
"The pathos of Lawrence Dorr's stories arises not from the emotions of his characters but from the tragic circumstances of their lives. As in Dostoevsky's works, Dorr's characters struggle profoundly with their faith, their reason, and the ever-present problem of evil. But throughout their struggles one beautiful constant remains — a moral sanity in the midst of an immoral chaos. Dorr's characters discover peace through faith and thus enable the reader to triumph through them and with them."
View Review quote
