A collection of 16 poignant stories about the rogue stresses that threaten the stability of modern women, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom presents tales that are witty, absurd, and beautiful, about coming together, making do, and learning to live with the scars of life. "...One of the great delights of these stories is that they approach the usual cliches of real life and fiction at an unexpectedly oblique angle. And they do so with surprising emotional force".--The Wall Street Journal.

At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Hempel, Amy

United States

Harpercollins

Hempel's now-classic collection of short fiction is peopled by complex characters who have discovered that their safety nets are not dependable and who must now learn to balance on the threads of wit, irony, and spirit.

Reasons to Live

Harper-perennial

This first collection of fifteen stories deals with the strategies of emotional survival and offers sharp, brittle, and intelligent looks at staying alive, at how to manage a life truly one's own, and how to resist becoming a victim

Reasons to Live (Contemporary American Fiction)

Penguin??Books

A collection of 16 poignant stories about the rogue stresses that threaten the stability of modern women, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom presents tales that are witty, absurd, and beautiful, about coming together, making do, and learning to live with the scars of life. "...One of the great delights of these stories is that they approach the usual cliches of real life and fiction at an unexpectedly oblique angle. And they do so with surprising emotional force".--The Wall Street Journal.

At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (Contemporary American Fiction)

Literary

KNOPF

A collection of stories deals with women's responses to life's challenges

At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom: Stories

Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories

A collection of stories portrays a variety of characters whose vision is slightly skewed and whose inner logic keeps leading them to make bad decisions as they become obsessed and irrational about the places they call home. 15,000 first printing.

Scribner

Critically acclaimed master of the short story Amy Hempel’s Tumble Home is narrated by people with skewed visions of home. Not exactly crazy, they become obsessed and irrational as their inner logic leads them astray. In the title novella, a woman living in a psychiatric halfway house writes to a man she has met only once. Proceeding in brief vignettes that link and illuminate, she recounts her peculiar life with the other patients. The accretions of anecdote lead deeper and deeper into the psyche and history of the narrator, gradually revealing the reason for her urgent letter.

Amy Hempel's compassion, intensity, and illuminating observations have made her one of the most distinctive and admired modern writers. In three stunning books of stories, she has established a voice as unique and recognizable as the photographs of Cindy Sherman or the brushstrokes of Robert Motherwell. The Dog of the Marriage, Hempel's fourth collection, is about sexual obsession, relationships gone awry, and the unsatisfied longings of everyday life. In "Offertory," a modern-day Scheherazade entertains and manipulates her lover with stories of her sexual encounters with a married couple as a very young woman. In "Reference # 388475848-5," a letter contesting a parking ticket becomes a beautiful and unnerving statement of faith. In "Jesus Is Waiting," a woman driving to New York sends a series of cryptically honest postcards to an old lover. And the title story is a heartbreaking tale about the objects and animals and unmired desires that are left behind after death or divorce. These nine stories teem with wisdom, emotion, and surprising wit. Hempel explores the intricate psychology of people falling in and out of love, trying to locate something or someone elusive or lost. Her sentences are as lean, original, and startling as any in contemporary fiction.

The Dog of the Marriage: Stories

Humor & Satire

A complete collection of short works offers insight into the progression of the writer's work throughout a thirty-year period and features, among other tales, the complete texts of At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home, and The Dog of the Marriage. 15,000 first printing.

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

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

Books by Hempel, Amy

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

At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories

Reasons to Live

Reasons to Live (Contemporary American Fiction)

At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (Contemporary American Fiction)

Reasons to Live

At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom: Stories

Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories

Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories

The Dog of the Marriage: Stories

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel