Education
University of Houston.
( A novel that has drawn comparisons with the work of J. ...)
A novel that has drawn comparisons with the work of J. D. Salinger, Truman Capote, and Flannery O'Connor, Edisto centers on one Simons Everson Manigault, a twelve-year-old possessed of a vocabulary and sophistication way beyond his years and a preadolescent bewilderment with the behavior of adults. These include his mother, who is known as the Duchess, and his enigmatic father-surrogate, Taurus. Imbued with a strong sense of place―an isolated strip of South Carolina coast called Edisto―Padgett Powell's novel is "truly remarkable . . . both as a narrative and in its extraordinary use of language" (Walker Percy).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374531684/?tag=2022091-20
(In his first collection of short stories, Powell succeeds...)
In his first collection of short stories, Powell succeeds in capturing the sheer pleasure of language. Author of the celebrated novels Edisto (an American Book Award Finalist) and A Woman Named Drown, he here sheds a darker, more revealing light on the landscapes and characters that have made his reputation as the voice of the "New South."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805021116/?tag=2022091-20
( Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Wom...)
Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America’s South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress–cum-pool shark On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a “woman named Drown.” He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they’re heading farther south together—to Florida—where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life’s laboratory is about to get quite contradictory. Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell’s A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness—a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much—and yet everything—happens at once.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/148046421X/?tag=2022091-20
(Edisto, a novel by Padgett Powell. Published by Farrar St...)
Edisto, a novel by Padgett Powell. Published by Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1984. "Edisto is a startling book, full of new sights, sounds, and ways of feeling. Mr. Powell weaves wonderful tapestries from ordinary speech; his people, black and white, whether speaking to each other or past each other, tell us things that we never heard before. The book is subtle, daring, and brilliant." - Donald Barthelme.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004U6IEVM/?tag=2022091-20
(In the sequel to the critically acclaimed novel Edisto, S...)
In the sequel to the critically acclaimed novel Edisto, Simons Manigault, fresh from college, tries to forestall his father's plans for his career with the help of his hard-drinking, literary-minded mother. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805042377/?tag=2022091-20
( The idiosyncratic genius of Padgett Powell shines throu...)
The idiosyncratic genius of Padgett Powell shines through in nine stories that bend the conventions of short fiction Padgett Powell’s literary stage is a blurred vision of the American South. His characters are bored, sad, assured, confused, deluded, and often just one step away from madness. The stories they populate are madder still, delivered by a voice enthralling and distinctive. Whether he’s chronicling a housewife’s encouragement of adolescent lust, following two good ol’ boys on their search for a Chinese healer, or delving into the mind of an unstable moped accident survivor as he awaits a hefty settlement check, Powell revels in the irregularities of the mundane. His people occupy bar stools and strip clubs, pickup truck cabs and mental health clinics, looking for love, drugs, answers. According to the New York Times Book Review, “Mr. Powell is like a fabulous guest at a dinner party, the guy who gets people drinking far too much and licking their dessert plates and laughing at jokes—for which not a few of them will hate themselves in the morning.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480464112/?tag=2022091-20
( Named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Vanity Fair "Rif...)
Named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Vanity Fair "Rifles through fear, identity, meaning, and cultural memory in forty-four short, surreal stories." Vanity Fair "By turns moving, funny, and maddening . very much in the key of Donald Barthelme." The New York Times Book Review "Somehow both grounded and absurd, each one of the stories trying get at that heart of the confusion and sadness at the core of contemporary life." VICE From the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell’s new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme’s advice that wacky mode” must break their hearts.” The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the forty-four stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of Powell’s wit, his . . . dazzling turns of phrase” (Scott Spencer). Padgett Powell’s language is both lofty and low-down, his tone cranky and heartfelt, exuberant and inconsolable. His characters rebel against convention and ambition, hoping to maintain their very sanity by doing so. Even the most hilarious or fantastical stories in Cries for Help, Various ring gloriously, poignantly, true.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936787318/?tag=2022091-20
( Twenty-three surreal fictions—stories, character assass...)
Twenty-three surreal fictions—stories, character assassinations, and mini-travelogues—from one of the most heralded writers of the American South There are many things that repulse “Dr. Ordinary.” “Kansas” is notable for its distinct lack of farmland. “Wayne’s Fate” is most unfortunate, not merely for Wayne but for the roofer pal who stands by watching his good buddy lose his head. “Miss Resignation” simply cannot win at Bingo. And there is nothing “Typical” about the unemployed steelworker and self-described “piece of crud” who strides through this collection’s title story. Welcome to the world of Padgett Powell, one of the most original American literary voices in recent memory. Typical is both a bravura demonstration of Powell’s passion for words, and an offbeat, perceptive view of contemporary life—an enthralling work by a one-of-a-kind wordsmith, and a redefinition of what short fiction can be.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805071229/?tag=2022091-20
( A special two-in-one edition of National Book Award fin...)
A special two-in-one edition of National Book Award finalist Padgett Powell’s acclaimed southern novels: Edisto and Edisto Revisited In Edisto, Simons Everson Manigault is not a typical twelve-year-old boy in tiny Edisto, South Carolina, in the late 1960s. At the insistence of his challenging mother, who believes her son to possess a capacity for genius, Simons immerses himself in great literature and becomes as literate and literary as any English professor. When Taurus, a soft-spoken African American stranger, moves into the cabin recently vacated by the Manigaults’ longtime maid, a friendship forms. The lonely, excitable Simons and the quiet, thoughtful Taurus, who has appointed himself Simons’s guide in the ways of the grown-up world, bond over the course of a hot southern summer. In Edisto Revisited, Simons Manigault is newly graduated from Clemson University, bored, unfocused, and idling his summer away at his mother’s home in Edisto, South Carolina. Not yet ready to fully embrace adulthood, Simons finds himself surrendering to cynicism. To avoid sinking further into his rut, Simons embarks on a road trip through the South. After a disastrous stint as a Corpus Christi fisherman, he exits the Lone Star State, doubling back to the Louisiana bayou to spend some quality time with his former friend and mentor—and his mother’s ex-lover—Taurus. But as even Taurus’s once sought-after wisdom wears thin, Simons begins to suspect that the grass is not greener on the other side—it may be burnt, brown, and dead wherever he goes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GSE3UIG/?tag=2022091-20
(Simons Manigault ( You say it Simmons. I m a rare one-m S...)
Simons Manigault ( You say it Simmons. I m a rare one-m Simons ) lives with his mother, an eccentric professor known locally as the Duchess, who is convinced her twelve-year-old son can become a writer of genius. She has immersed Simons in the literary classics since birth and has given him free rein to gather material in such spots as a nightclub called Marvin s R.O. Sweet Shop and Baby Grand. At the center of Simons s life on Edisto is an enigmatic character who tutors the boy in the art of watching the world without presumption. Taurus, as he is dubbed by Simons, acts as a father surrogate as well, taking his precocious young charge in stride. He leads him to, among other discoveries, his first prizefight, date, and hangover. The way Simons sees the world will change radically when he leaves his ad-lib life among the denizens of Edisto for the private schools and tennis tournaments of Hilton Head, South Carolina his father s, The Progenitor s, territory. Using a combination of a child s run-on phrasing and the vigorous prose and deft comic touches of a writer who is sure of every step, Padgett Powell established himself as a vivid new practitioner of the craft of fiction with his first book."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374146519/?tag=2022091-20
University of Houston.
Powell has written five more novels—including,, a sequel to his debut, Hollingsworth"s Men (2000),, and, his most recent—and three collections of short stories. In addition to The New Yorker, Powell"s work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper"s, Grand Street, Oxford American, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications. Powell has been a writing professor at the University of Florida since 1984.
1984 American Book Award, nomination, Edisto.
( Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Wom...)
( A special two-in-one edition of National Book Award fin...)
(In the sequel to the critically acclaimed novel Edisto, S...)
( The idiosyncratic genius of Padgett Powell shines throu...)
( Twenty-three surreal fictions—stories, character assass...)
( Named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Vanity Fair "Rif...)
(In his first collection of short stories, Powell succeeds...)
( A novel that has drawn comparisons with the work of J. ...)
(Simons Manigault ( You say it Simmons. I m a rare one-m S...)
(Edisto, a novel by Padgett Powell. Published by Farrar St...)
(Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)