"The Three Button Trick & Other Stories by Barker

"The Three Button Trick & Other Stories by Barker

Nicola Barker weaves humor and tragedy through this fresh and original collection, as her characters struggle to find love, independence, and fulfillment in this new addition to the Ecco Art of the Story series

Nicola Barker's collection of her nineteen most brilliant stories exemplifies her ability to create daring, witty, and dynamic characters, all their idiosyncracies intact. Barker's stories often use wordplay and humor to stretch the boundaries of metaphor and reality as the outrageously original plots unfold. Through her confident and clever style, these short stories sling Barker to the forefront of fiction writing, as she is reminiscent of Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, and Margaret Atwood.

The collection begins with a smart tale of a teenage girl whose obsession with the size of her nose dangerously compromises her relationships with her friends and her family. Inside Information is a pun of a title, describing how the protagonist's unborn fetus is the only one able to reform his mother's compulsive shoplifting by pulling the ultimate prank. G-String and Symbiosis: Class Cestoda detail women who gain self-esteem, albeit through quirky methods, despite the cowardly men who try to suppress them. The title story, Three Button Trick, is about a man who deliberately buttons his duffel coat incorrectly to attract sympathetic females. Carrie falls for this trick, and it takes twenty-one years, a curious friend, and an eighty-three-year-old widower for her to realize her mistake. Wesley is the protagonist of a three-part collection, Blisters, Braces, and Mr. Lippy who, traumatized by two unfortunate incidents as a young boy, is an eccentric obsessed with freedom and the sea.

Barker skillfully intertwines humor with despair to stimulate any reader's interest; she taps into the psyches of her characters to create an authentic, original, and highly enjoyable read. The Three Button Trick and Other Stories is a resonant, audacious volume from a writer of immense talent and originality.

Barker, Nicola: - Nicola Barker is the author of a dozen novels, including The Yips (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), Darkmans (shortlisted for the Booker and the Ondaatje Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Clear (longlisted for the Booker), and Wide Open (winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and three story collections, including Love Your Enemies (winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award). Two of her stories, Dual Balls and Symbiosis, have been adapted for British television, and the former was shortlisted for a BAFTA. Barker was named on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003, and her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in London.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780880016773
ISBN 10	0880016779
Title	"The Three Button Trick & Other Stories
Author	Barker
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	ECCO Press
Year published	1999-08-27
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.