Russell Banks

A collection of short stories from the contemporary American master whom the New York Times declared "the most compassionate fiction writer working today." Suffused with Russell Banks's trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try--and sometimes fail--to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world. In the title story, a father looks back on the legend of the cherished family dog whose divided loyalties mirrored the fragmenting of his marriage. "A Former Marine" asks, to chilling effect, if one can ever stop being a parent. And in the haunting, evocative "Veronica," a mysterious woman searching for her daughter may not be who she claims she is. Moving between the stark beauty of winter in upstate New York and the seductive heat of Florida, Banks's acute and penetrating collection demonstrates the range and virtuosity of both his narrative prowess and his startlingly panoramic vision of modern American life.

Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, a young man must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders. Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid is in many ways an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and reoffending sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative partnership. But when the Professor's past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men's relationship shifts. Suddenly, the Kid must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision.

July, 1936. Vanessa Cole, notorious for her scandalous affairs with the rich and famous, has returned to her parents' home after the collapse of her second marriage. Rumours are rife as the family gathers to celebrate the 4th of July at the Adirondack Camp deep in their privately-owned wilderness, The Reserve, only to be interrupted by Jordan Groves, who brazenly lands his bi-plane on the pristine Second Lake. Groves is easy prey for Vanessa's blend of electrifying charm and destructiveness. But in order to protect his two young sons and his marriage, he must try to keep his distance. Especially when it becomes clear that Vanessa carries a deeply scarring family secret.

"At once a harrowing mystery, an illuminating psychological novel of subverted love and family dysfunction, and a powerful commentary on class structure in America . . . Banks is] one of America's finest contemporary fiction writers." --Boston GlobePart love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness--and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules. Vanessa Cole is a stunningly beautiful and wild heiress. Twice-married, she has been scandalously linked to rich and famous men. On the night of July 4, 1936, inside her family's remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as the Reserve, Vanessa will lose her father to a heart attack--and meet Jordan Groves, a seductively carefree local artist. Jordan is easy prey for Vanessa's electrifying charm. But when Vanessa becomes unhinged by her father's unexpected death, she begins to spin out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path. Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondacks to war-torn Spain and fascist Germany, and filled with characters that pierce the heart, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense and drama.

An Omnibus Edition of Three Classic Early Novels from the Critically Acclaimed Author of Cloudsplitter and Affliction"Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically American--a dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville." -- Washington Post"A marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once." -- New York Times Book ReviewFamily Life: Russell Banks's first novel is an adult fairy tale of a royal family in a mythical contemporary kingdom where the myriad dramas of domesticity blend with an outrageous slew of murders, mayhem, coups, debauches, world tours, and love in all guises, transcendent or otherwise. Hamilton Stark: This tale of a solitary, boorish, misanthropic New Hampshire pipe fitter--the sole inhabitant of the house from which he evicted his own mother--is at once a compelling meditation on identity and a thoroughly engaging story of life on the cold edge of New England. The Relation of My Imprisonment: Utilizing a form invented by imprisoned seventeenth-century Puritan divines--an utterly sincere and detailed, if highly artificial, recounting of great suffering--Banks's novel is a remarkably inventive, lovingly good-humored argument, exploration, and map of the caged religious mind.

"At once a harrowing mystery, an illuminating psychological novel of subverted love and family dysfunction, and a powerful commentary on class structure in America . . . Banks is] one of America's finest contemporary fiction writers." --Boston GlobePart love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness--and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules. Vanessa Cole is a stunningly beautiful and wild heiress. Twice-married, she has been scandalously linked to rich and famous men. On the night of July 4, 1936, inside her family's remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as the Reserve, Vanessa will lose her father to a heart attack--and meet Jordan Groves, a seductively carefree local artist. Jordan is easy prey for Vanessa's electrifying charm. But when Vanessa becomes unhinged by her father's unexpected death, she begins to spin out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path. Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondacks to war-torn Spain and fascist Germany, and filled with characters that pierce the heart, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense and drama.

"The most convincing portrait I know of contemporary America . . . a great American novel." -- James Atlas, The Atlantic MonthlyFrom acclaimed author Russell Banks, a masterful novel of hope lost and gained--a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream. Banks's searing tale of uprootedness, migration, and exploitation in contemporary America brings together two of the dominant realms of his fiction--New England and the Caribbean--skillfully braided into one taut narrative. Continental Drift is the story of a young blue-collar worker and family man who abandons his broken dreams in New Hampshire and the story of a young Haitian woman who, with her nephew and baby, flees the brutal injustice and poverty of her homeland. Continental Drift is a powerful literary classic from one of contemporary fiction's most important writers.

Bone is a punked-out teenager, living in a trailer with his alcoholic mother and abusive stepfather. Rejected by his parents, out of school and in trouble with the police, he's now into drugs and shoplifting as he drifts through dope squats and shopping malls. Until, breaking away from a group of biker thieves, he finds refuge in an abandoned school bus with I-Man, an exiled Rastafarian who dramatically changes his life.

Owen Brown is the last surviving son of America's most famous political terrorist, John Brown, who in 1859 raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, intending to galvanise the Southern slaves into rebellion. Now Owen tells John's story. This incredible novel recreates pre-Civil War America, when slavery was tearing the country apart, and tells of one man's passage from abolitionist to guerrilla fighter and, finally, martyr. Cloudsplitter is a dazzling, suspenseful, heartbreaking story filled with both intimate scenes of domestic life and chilling violence.

Hannah Musgrave is on the run: from her adoring parents, her many lovers, even from herself. As a young woman, she worked for a Boston terrorist group which has put her on the FBI's most wanted list, forcing her to flee to Liberia in West Africa. There, she marries an ambitious young politician and settles down. But, Hannah can never quite bridge the differences between herself and her African husband. Liberia is a country on the verge of explosion and the threat of civil war is ever present. The violent events that follow touch everyone close to Hannah and, once again, she has to flee. This time, though, the past won't disappear.

Having fled to West Africa in the late 1970s for her work as a political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah Musgrave befriends notorious former Liberian president Charles Taylor, whom she helps to escape from prison and who years later leads a rebellion that threatens Hannah's family. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

"Rich in imagery and the detail of small-town life and haunting in its portrayal of ordinary men and women struggling to understand loss. Under Mr. Banks's restrained craftsmanship, what begins as the story of senseless tragedy is transformed into an aspiring testament to hope and human resilience." -- Atlanta ConstitutionIn The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame? Here is a stunning novel of "compelling moral suspense" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) from one of America's greatest storytellers.

In Sucess Stories, an exceptionally varied yet coherent collection, Russell Banks proves himself one of the most astute and forceful writers in America today. Queen for a Day, Success Story, and Adultery trace fortunes of the Painter family in there pursuit of and retreat from the American dream. Banks also explores the ethos of rampant materialism in a group of contemporary moral fables. The Fish is an evocating parable of faith and greed set in a Southeast Asian village, The Gully tells of the profitability of violence and the ironies of upward mobility in a Latin American shantytown, and Chrildren's Story explores the repressed rage that boils beneath the surface of relationships between parents and children and between citizens of the first and third worlds.

Visiting Jamaica, where he is confronted with the beauty, brutality, and social complexity of the island, the unnamed narrator struggles to come to grips with a series of events that frighten and confuse him