Scar Vegas: And Other Stories

With explosive narrative skill, Tom Paine pulls you into the worlds of a cross-dressing Army general, a confused lowlife being offered an incredible opportunity, and a despairing man whose mother hates him for no reason. Paine's stories feature exotic locales and take you on adventures you never imagined. His work has been published in the New Yorker, Playboy, Harper's, and Zoetrope and has received O. Henry awards, prizes from the Boston Review and Pushcart, and a National Magazine award, and has been optioned for film productions. Like Ernest Hemingway, Robert Stone, Richard Ford, and Russell Banks, Tom Paine grips the reader with his passion and vision.

Literature & Fiction

Paine, Tom

United States

Harcourt

He's California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael, and his life is forever changed when he meets Private Tommy Trang at boot camp. Trang is not your typical American patriot--his mother was a Saigon prostitute, his father a dead U.S. marine, and Trang's heart soon belongs to a sixteen-year-old Kuwaiti princess trapped behind the lines when the Iraqis invade her country. Together, the two marines are ready to wave the American flag all the way to Baghdad, or at least into occupied Kuwait, to rescue Princess Lulu. During the exciting, moving, and often hilarious account of these two AWOL marines sneaking through the Iraqi lines, the mellow Carmichael gets to know the heart of Pvt. Tommy Trang, and discovers a new brand of patriotism that is gripping, contagious, and as deep as life itself. A powerful first novel by an award-winning writer, The Pearl of Kuwait is Romeo and Juliet meets Lawrence of Arabia. Tom Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and original story with the classic ingredients of love and war.

The Pearl of Kuwait

Featuring ten stunning stories, Scar Vegas grips the reader with breathtaking, gut-wrenching, and relentlessly entertaining narratives set on a bedrock of piercing political consciousness and clear-eyed reportorial vision. From a teenage anarchist to a Marine Corps general, Tom Paine's passionate characters make the kind of heartbreaking decisions that crackle with moral-and spiritual-consequences. And with each story Paine displays his mastery of language and nuance, flowing effortlessly from drug culture dialect to the clipped English of a Romanian émigré. With stinging wit and unmatched skill, Tom Paine will "startle you with the muscular vigor of his prose and the ability to tell a tale that sucks you in and won't let go from start to finish" (Newsday).

Short Stories & Anthologies

Harvest Books

Private Tommy Trang is the best marine imaginable; he's smart, daring, physically fit, and patriotic to the core. California surfer Cody "Cowboy" Carmichael acts as his co-conspirator and Boswell during the Gulf War as the two AWOL marines sneak through the Iraqi lines to rescue the sixteen-year-old Princess Lulu, who has captured Trang's heart. In an adventure filled with humor and heroism, mellow Carmichael gets to know the fervent heart of Tommy Trang--and what it means to be a true patriot. In his first novel, award-winning author Tom Paine has created an enthralling, joyful, and picaresque tale of love and war.

The Pearl of Kuwait: A Novel of the Gulf War

The insightful and provocative stories in Tom Paine's collection spring from a series of seismic events that rocked the post-millennium world. News headlines from the last decade -- the fall of Baghdad, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the BP oil spill -- not only inspire the settings but also raise ethical questions that percolate throughout this ominous and timely work. A stark reminder of the challenges and resultant anxiety facing a global society, "A Boy's Book of Nervous Breakdowns" depicts the simultaneously dreamlike and brutally real experience of witnessing contemporary political and environmental catastrophes. Paine approaches the second U.S. invasion of Iraq through the eyes of a CBS radio journalist and her desperate Iraqi translator as they report the opening months of the attack and dodge dan- ger with a newborn in tow. In other stories, a father blames global warming for the drowning death of his daughter and journeys by horseback across the last of the Montana glaciers; a Japanese reggae band struggles under the radioactive umbrella of the Fukushima nuclear disaster; and a genius at Goldman Sachs invents a money-making algorithm, then ends his days with a tribe of headhunters in the Amazon. Paine masterfully orchestrates these episodic depictions of a failing civilization, however unnerving, through a wide array of perspectives, each tied to the other by Cassandra-like prophecies. Immediately compelling, "A Boy's Book of Nervous Breakdowns" confronts the harsh realities of our time with imaginative and moving vignettes that reinforce the fragility, greed, and heartache of the human condition.

A Boy's Book of Nervous Breakdowns: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

Literary

LSU Press

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Books by Paine, Tom

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

Scar Vegas: And Other Stories

The Pearl of Kuwait

Scar Vegas: And Other Stories

The Pearl of Kuwait: A Novel of the Gulf War

A Boy's Book of Nervous Breakdowns: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction)