Fiction. A giant elk is trapped inside the yard of a family of teenaged boys while their tyrannical father gradually shrinks to the size of a doll. A World War II veteran living at a Laurel Canyon ranch in the late '60s faces the threat of changing times and a disturbing, soon to be famous, cult at the next ranch over. A former Olympic contender, after an injury leaves him with a glass eye, takes work as a security guard at the mansion of a ruthless CEO. A child who discovers the scene of a bizarre and unexplained crash in ...
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Fiction. A giant elk is trapped inside the yard of a family of teenaged boys while their tyrannical father gradually shrinks to the size of a doll. A World War II veteran living at a Laurel Canyon ranch in the late '60s faces the threat of changing times and a disturbing, soon to be famous, cult at the next ranch over. A former Olympic contender, after an injury leaves him with a glass eye, takes work as a security guard at the mansion of a ruthless CEO. A child who discovers the scene of a bizarre and unexplained crash in Roswell, New Mexico, fashions the rest of his life through the lens of what he found there... With language at turns diamond sharp and stone blunt, the thirteen stories of David Ryan's dark and edgy debut, ANIMALS IN MOTION, map the existence of their characters through the uncharted world of the psyche. The animals that mysteriously appear suggest a leveling, a weave of human experience with that of the natural world. A landscape alive in the space between thought and impulse, where present circumstances are ruled by memories of the past, and where conscious reality is trumped by greater truths of the imagination. ANIMALS IN MOTION presents an often surreal yet consistently beautiful tapestry of American despair and hope. "There is not a word wasted in this powerful debut collection. I think that David Ryan has set a course that will influence many other writers, anyone who values language that is taut and precise, characters whose response to their ruin is, in effect, 'Bring it on, and important concerns that claim a reader's attention in the most persuasive ways possible." Amy Hempel "David Ryan's collection ANIMALS IN MOTION is whip-smart and stunning. Stark, lyrical, and unsettling, these stories resonate with the grit of Denis Johnson and Raymond Carver and help us imagine new possibilities for the short story form." Joe Meno "David Ryan is a 21st century Steinbeck. His stories are contemplations on the restless soul, lost and meandering through a wilderness of casinos, glass box office buildings, baggage claims, and KFC. The world of ANIMALS IN MOTION is stark and brutal, but teeming with humanity, wit, heart, and spirit. The complexity beneath Ryan's bare-bones prose puts ANIMALS IN MOTION on the shelf of books to be read again and again." Julia Slavin "ANIMALS IN MOTION is a revelatory collection, full of gripping stories set in the borderland between reality and dream. David Ryan is a tough-minded but deceptively lyrical writer, with an engagingly dark sensibility." Tom Perrotta "The stories in David Ryan's debut collection tack nimbly between terrible unease and terrible beauty. He's a diabolical craftsman. You wouldn't trust him for a minute, except you find you have no choice." Owen King "From the first page of ANIMALS IN MOTION one is immersed in the precisionist's world, filled with startling light, stunning events, exquisitely captured moments a haunting world of which the reader has a particularly wide-angled view. Story after story Ryan works his unique magic, showing us a world as mystifying as it is mundane. This recognition, that the ordinary is very strange indeed, is at the heart of these quiet but searing stories. ANIMALS IN MOTION is a marvel." Frederick Barthelme "A debut collection of stories one of the best in recent memory that finds psychological acuity within characters who are unreflective or even impenetrable. Ryan has plainly been honing his craft, because the 13 tales here are the work of a writer who knows exactly what he's doing and challenges the reader to figure out how he's doing it. Not that the stories are difficult or experimental, but they often seem to begin at a point where nothing is clear who the protagonist is, what the situation is, where the tale is headed and then they unfold as consciousness might, not in a linear fashion but making revelations through association or omission; those revelations might be clearer to the reader than to the characters. In 'The
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Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories to cart. $3.39, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Austell, GA, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories to cart. $3.39, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories to cart. $7.99, very good condition, Sold by Half Price Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
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Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories (First Edition) to cart. $15.00, new condition, Sold by Dan Pope Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from WEST Hartford, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
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New. No Jacket. Hartford: Roundabout Press (2014). First edition. First printing, with full number line. Trade paperback original. New. Defect-free. Smoke-free. Brand new, unread copy of this debut collection of stories, which received a starred review in Kirkus Review. Publisher's Weekly said, "Ryan's collection triumphs as a spiritual and cerebral journey through oft-ignored parts of the human and animal psyche."
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories (Signed First Edition) to cart. $30.00, new condition, Sold by Dan Pope Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from WEST Hartford, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
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New. No Jacket. Signed by Author(s) Hartford: Roundabout Press (2014). First edition, first printing, with full number line. Softbound, a trade paperback original. New. A perfect unread copy. Signed by author on title page. A small-press debut collection of stories, which KIRKUS REVIEW called "one of the best in recent memory." Less than 1, 000 copies in the first print-run. 0.0.
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories to cart. $30.31, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories (Signed First Hardcover to cart. $50.00, new condition, Sold by Dan Pope Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from WEST Hartford, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press, West Hartford.
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New in New jacket. Signed by Author(s) West Hartford: Roundabout [2014]. First edition, first printing. Hardbound. NEW/NEW. A pristine unread copy, without defect. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page (his name only, no inscriptions). One of 100 signed and individually numbered copies in the hardcover edition; also stamped on half title page with the author's ANIMALS stamp. This is copy number 54. The book was published in a trade paperback edition of 1000 copies in the first printing and simultaneously 100 signed and numbered copies in the Hardcover edition. The first hardcover edition published by Roundabout Press. Comes with archival-quality protective mylar dust jacket cover. Smoke-free shop. Shipped in well padded box. Purchased new and opened only for author to sign. You cannot find a better copy.
Add this copy of Animals in Motion: Stories to cart. $65.00, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2014 by Roundabout Press.
