Showing results by author "Max Porter" in All Categories

There’s a village an hour from London. It’s no different from many others today: one pub, one church, redbrick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land and to the land’s past. It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth, who awakens after a glorious nap.

Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar - a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised. In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter.

You mustn’t do that to yourself, Shy. You mustn’t hurt yourself like that. He is wandering into the night listening to the voices in his head: his teachers, his parents, the people he has hurt, and the people who are trying to love him. Got your special meds, nutcase? He is escaping Last Chance, a home for “very disturbed young men,” and walking into the haunted space between his night terrors, his past, and the heavy question of his future. The night is huge and it hurts.

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss gives way to memories, the little unit of three starts to heal.

When the FBI discover a clue that leads them to believe an assassin they have been hunting for a decade may be a member of the racetrack community, they persuade an established trainer to take two of their agents as clients. As owners of a racehorse they are able to move freely among the horsemen in the search for their assassin. Even though the FBI makes every effort to limit his exposure to the danger involved in their man hunt the trainer finds himself in the position of being a possible target for the assassin. As the search unfolds, you will have a rare look at the life of a ...

This is the story of the making of a horse farm from scratch. The people involved in the development of a major horse farm are not necessarily the same people needed to run one. This ranch was before ranches were mechanized and other than a few railroads, horses were the means of transportation. It was a time when men still carried guns for protection. And from time to time had to use them. The main character grew up on a horse ranch. After trying several ways of life, decided that the life as a horseman was the best he had experienced.I have accidently got myself in a mess. I am leaving ...

This is a story of a kid on a small farm, that starts to buy and sell goats. He goes from nothing; to be one of the most successful farmers, and livestock raisers, in the area. He becomes wealthy by hiring good people and giving them the support, they need to get the job done. It is based loosely on a man that did this very thing. My mother died when I was five. We lived in a two-room cabin. My father was a hard worker, but there was no way for a working man to rise above his station in life. The wages he made, did not allow him to invest in things that would grow wealth. All rural areas ...

In this bold and brilliant short work of experimental fiction by the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Max Porter inhabits Francis Bacon in his final moments, translating into seven extraordinary written pictures the explosive final workings of the artist's mind. Writing as painting rather than about painting, Porter lets the images he conjures speak for themselves as they take their revenge on the subject who wielded them in life.

Not far from London, there is a village. This village belongs to the people who live in it and to those who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England's mysterious past and its confounding present. It belongs to Mad Pete, the grizzled artist. To ancient Peggy, gossiping at her gate. To families dead for generations, and to those who have only recently moved here. But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort who has woken from his slumber in the woods. Dead Papa Toothwort, who is listening to them all.

Carson Miller is a cowboy trying to establish a cattle ranch while fighting off a neighbor rancher who wants his property. Carson is forced to defend himself with one hand tied behind his back, because the neighbor’s daughter is an old girlfriend of his. At the same time Carson discovers an Indian Mound hidden in the forest on his property. When he engages a Professor of Archology to excavate the mound, the two unfolding events give nonstop action. The story appeals to western readers as well as history buffs.

Brody is the story of a trainer who decided to take a page out of Dale Baird’s play book. Dale flooded cheap tracks with horses and managed to win thirty five million dollars and over nine thousand races. He became the winningest trainer in history. Brody decided if Dale could do it, why couldn’t he do it with the same success. This is the story of how Brody went about his effort to win thirty five million dollars, to match Dale’s accomplishment.

Things keep slipping up for Shy. All he wants is sex, spliffs and his own turntables, and for all the red noise in his mind to disappear. But again and again he spirals past his senses and ends up with his head in his hands and carnage around him. He's been kicked out of two schools, been cautioned, arrested, stabbed his stepdad in the finger and bottled a former Tumble Tots playmate, but it's the taunts and teasing of his new schoolmates that haunt Shy.

There's a village an hour from London. It's no different from many others today: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land, and to the land's past.

My name is David Dawson and the year is 1939. I am on my way to a race track in Ohio. I have a pickup and a two horse trailer. I have two horses that are sound enough to hit the board at the cheap tracks where I race. I manage to win a race often enough to keep me in feed money.The problem I have is keeping them fit. They spend most of their time in the trailer and on the road. There is no time to exercise them. The track I am headed for today is a three day drive. They will not be off of the trailer for three days and will run the next day. It makes it tough on us trainers. The only saving...

The story of a seasoned horse trader. The buying and selling of horses is a testing occupation. You make decisions every day that may make or break you. No one is right every time, but you had better be right more than not. Failure to be right most of the time will put you out of business quickly. You buy and sell on impulse and the more accurate your impulses, the more successful you will be. Learning to trust your impulses is an education in itself.

This is the story of Austin, a cowboy who has been a marshal in several small towns. He has become a name to those who live by the gun. Because of the reputation he has made, he is asked to become a United States Marshal. He is sent to clean up towns where his kind of law is needed to bring back order. He is free to clean them up by the method of his choice. Sometimes his method is gentle. Sometimes it is harsh. But no matter which method he chooses, he always restores law and order to the town.I don’t know why I became involved in this mess. I discovered a body along the trail just ...

William Darby was a good cowboy who tried a number of things before he became a successful rancher. He even tried a short stint as a lawman. He went to work for an old friend who was under pressure to give up his ranch. He proved to be tougher than the outlaws trying to push his friend off of his land. His fortunes made a drastic change as a result of taking a hand in this battle. The story is about the infinite possibilities that can change or end your life in every way possible. For life is a journey of endless opportunities and possibilities.

This is the story of a teenager boy who sets out to avenge the murder of his best friend; and becomes one the most successful bounty hunters in the country. He travels from the open range of Montana to the flat lands along the Gulf of Mexico. His specialty is the high dollar criminal with a large bounty. These are dangerous men who will die before allowing themselves to be arrested. Most of them have committed a crime that will cause them to be hung. Many of them are living in plain sight; because they are so dangerous, the local law enforcement is afraid to try to apprehend them. It is a ...

This story follows a boy from a homesteader’s farm in the mountains of Arizona. We watch him as he goes from a homeless kid with an old colt pistol, to a deadly gunman before he is old enough to shave. The story proves that the old saying, that a colt was an equalizer of men, was true. He became better than most with the goal of saving a ranch for a girl he had never met but loved.

This is a story of a small-time detective who because he was curious, uncovered an unbelievable real estate fraud. Because he was curious; he uncovered a plot that murdered two wealthy men and took the billion- dollar estate of one of them. He solved the case, no one realized was a case. It was so disguised; that without his curiosity, the crime would have never been discovered.