A group of housewives smoking cigars and playing cards whilst a tornado approaches a west Texas town. An Asian-American medic bicycles through the Vietnam countryside with her husband and son returns to the spot where she once held dying soldiers. Or a young rockabilly aficionado preparing for a date in a Ukranian village close to Chenobyl. The words of Beatles song sung in a Cambodian work camp. Cullin seems to miraculously create moments of true pathos which distill important human experience into a single hair-raising image. I can honestly say they are the best stories I have ever read, they are chillingly good and I have utter conviction that this is a great writer.

From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest

CULLIN, MITCH

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

Mitch Cullin’s absorbing A Slight Trick of the Mind is an original portrait of literature’s most beloved detective, Sherlock Holmes, in the twilight of his illustrious life. Holmes—“a genius in whom scientific curiosity is raised to the status of heroic passion”—is famous for his powers of deduction. His world is made up of hard evidence and uncontestable facts, his observations and conclusions unsullied by personal feelings, until novelist Cullin goes behind the cold, unsentimental surface to reveal for the first time the inner world of an obsessively private man. It is 1947, and the long-retired Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse, where his memories and intellect begin to go adrift. He lives with a housekeeper and her young son, Roger, whose patient, respectful demeanor stirs paternal affection in Holmes. Holmes has settled into the routine of tending his apiary, writing in journals, and grappling with the diminishing powers of his razor-sharp mind, when Roger comes upon a case hitherto unknown. It is that of a Mrs. Keller, the long-ago object of Holmes’s deep—and never acknowledged—infatuation. As Mitch Cullin weaves together Holmes’s hidden past, his poignant struggle to retain mental acuity, and his unlikely relationship with Roger, Holmes is transformed from the machine-like, mythic figure into an ordinary man, confronting and acquiescing to emotions he has resisted his entire life. This subtle and wise work is more than just a reimagining of a classic character. It is a profound meditation on faultiness of memory and how, as we grow older, the way we see the world is inevitably altered.

A Slight Trick of the Mind

Literature & Fiction

United States

Nan A. Talese

“Cullin is an unusually sophisticated theorist of human nature.” –The New York Times Book Review Hollis and Debra have settled into their golden years in a gated community outside of Tucson. Although they are devoted to each other, events that took place decades earlier have left Hollis with a deep-seated trauma–and with a secret he has never been able to share with his wife. When Debra is diagnosed with cancer, she makes her husband a simple request–“Tell me about us”–which forces Hollis to revisit his past. In 1950, Hollis fought in the Korean War alongside the bigoted but charismatic Bill McCreedy. McCreedy seems to have it all, although he is a mercurial soldier whose ungovernable behavior is often at odds with what Hollis believes to be right. Now, years later, Hollis is haunted by memories of McCreedy and his own wartime actions that he had tried to suppress. These recollections eventually lead him from the body-strewn battlefields of Korea to the remote farmhouse in Texas where McCreedy had grown up–and for the first time he finds himself examining his and Debra’s life to understand how chance had played a hand in bringing them together. Mitch Cullin, one of today’s most celebrated young novelists, captures some of the most difficult themes in literature: fate, love, and death. The Post-War Dream is literary fiction of the highest order.

The Post-War Dream: A Novel

Whompyjawed

Whompyjawed: 1.Askew, out of place 2.Off-center or crooked 3. (informal) a person of eccentric or questionable character; odd.................... Football is Willy Keeler's ticket out of West Texas, but only if he can keep the explosive combination of his intellect and hormones from destroying his high-school career. Not an easy task as he also contends with the endless demands of his girlfriend, mother, coach, and college recruiters. When a startling sexual encounter with a classmate and a consuming infatuation with one of his mother's friends threaten to shatter his fragile balance, Willy discovers that simply figuring out who he is may be the greatest challenge of all. Reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye and The Last Picture Show, Mitch Cullin's Whompyjawed is an unforgettable coming-of-age story, told with unparalleled humor and compassion.

Whompyjawed: A Novel

Contemporary

Scribner

A look at the world through the eyes of a wildly imaginative young girl in contemporary Texas.

Tideland

Dufour Editions

The stories and characters in this diverse collection of stories from the acclaimed novelist Mitch Cullin provide a fascinating gloss on events that have taken place in the second half of the 20th century. They begin at a remote Japanese beach house and end on an unnamed Alaskan island. These are stories about isolation, remembrances of past experiences, and the sometimes inaccurate nature of memory. Cullin's stories examine individuals who have survived momentous, often horrific, social upheavals-where relationships and common day-to-day life are suddenly shaken by unforeseen circumstances. `From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest' is a collection that deftly suggests we are all emigrants from personal histories we recall only fleetingly-moments which draw us back, but, as we imagine them, seem increasingly difficult to grasp. These polished and graceful stories are further evidence of the kind of work that makes Cullin one of our best young writers. "If something of the experimentalist shows in Cullin's novels, his stories are old-fashioned in the best sense, reporting slices of life as the characters experience them in a language that is economical yet richly evocative because of its precision."-Booklist

Mr. Holmes (A Slight Trick of the Mind Movie Tie-in Edition)

Anchor

The basis for the Major Motion Picture Mr. Holmes starring Ian McKellen and Laura Linney and directed by Bill Condon. It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn’t even know he was asking–about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind’s ability to know. A novel of exceptional grace and literary sensitivity, A Slight Trick of the Mind is a brilliant imagining of our greatest fictional detective and a stunning inquiry into the mysteries of human connection.

Sixty-eight-year-old Hollis and his wife Debra have settled into their golden years in a gated community outside of Tucson, Arizona. Although they are devoted to each other, events that took place decades earlier, when Hollis fought in the Korean War, have left him with a deep-seated trauma — and with a secret he has never been able to share with his wife. As a reluctant Hollis revisits his past after his wife becomes dangerously ill, we see just how much the years of war changed his life forever. In rapturous prose, Cullin captures in The Post-War Dream the complexity of a marriage and the indelible force of the past on one man's life.

The Post-War Dream

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Books by CULLIN, MITCH

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CULLIN, MITCH. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest

A Slight Trick of the Mind

The Post-War Dream: A Novel

Whompyjawed: A Novel

Tideland

From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest

Tideland

Mr. Holmes (A Slight Trick of the Mind Movie Tie-in Edition)

A Slight Trick of the Mind

The Post-War Dream