{"product_id":"the-delicate-prey-and-other-stories-by-paul-bowles","title":"The Delicate Prey and Other Stories \/ by Paul Bowles","description":"\u003cp\u003eEcco Press, 1995. Trade pb. Minor edge wear. VG. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePaul Bowles once said that a story should remain taut throughout, like a piece of string. That tense, stretched tone is the key to this collection of 17 eerie tales by the author best known for \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Sheltering Sky\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Delicate Prey\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is dedicated: \"For my mother, who first read me the stories of Poe.\" If Poe had lived in Mexico, and he'd had ice water running in his veins to counteract his feverish romanticism, he might have crafted something like these odd vignettes about human frailty and cruelty. The setting is a world where palm trees are like \"shiny green spiders,\" where bats reel silently overhead in a jet-black sky, where a hot, relentless wind blows across deserted plazas.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs Tobias Wolff writes in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eEsquire\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Delicate Prey\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is in fact one of the most profound, beautifully wrought, and haunting collections in our literature.... Bowles's tales are at once austere, witty, violent, and sensuous. They move with the inevitability of myth. His language has a purity of line, a poise and authority entirely its own, capable of instantly modulating from farce to horror without a ruffle.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Desierto Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46676626440358,"sku":null,"price":10.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0659\/3465\/5654\/files\/thedelicateprey.jpg?v=1758217619","url":"https:\/\/249f2c-1b.myshopify.com\/products\/the-delicate-prey-and-other-stories-by-paul-bowles","provider":"DESIERTO BOOKS","version":"1.0","type":"link"}