In the Valley of the Kings: Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393339086)

Praised for his "beautifully crafted and strangely surreal" (Peter Matthiessen) stories, Terrence Holt had been operating under the literary radar for more than fifteen years, placing award-winning stories in such noted journals as Zoetrope, Kenyon Review, and TriQuarterly. With the release of this debut collection, Holt's work takes its "rightful place besides those works of genius--fiction, philosophy, theology--unafraid of axing into our iced hearts" (William Giraldi, New York Times Book Review). Whether chronicling a plague that ravages a New England town or the anguish of a son who keeps his father's beating heart in a jar, Holt's stories oscillate between the rational and the surreal, the future and the past, masterfully weaving together reality and myth. Like Poe or Hawthorne, "Holt is a gifted wordsmith, his sentences carefully shaped and often beautiful, and he spins these ancient, irresolvable dilemmas in an elegiac poetry" (Los Angeles Times).

Author: Terrence Holt
ISBN-10: 0393339084
ISBN-13: 9780393339086
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 09/06/2010
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.41lbs
Size: 8.20h x 6.58w x 0.55d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 09/26/2010 pg. 24