Collected Stories
Paul Bowles's Collected Stories gathers the American expatriate's tales of abandonment and vengeance in sun-drenched, brutal settings: North Africa, Central America, the psychic borderlands of the West. A missionary arrives where his God has no power; a honeymooning husband abandons his wife in the South American jungle. Bowles writes with the calm of someone who has watched civilization fail often enough to stop being surprised.Ecco's edition keeps the collection in print in a straightforward paperback format. It is a useful introduction to a writer whose reputation rests on discomfort rather than consolation, best suited to readers who do not require a vacation story to feel like a vacation, and who can accept that the sunniest settings sometimes hide the darkest conclusions.
