Vanilla Bright Like Eminem - Hardcover

M ichel Faber is not only a master storyteller but a daring innovator as well. Here are the pitch-perfect prose, indelible characterizations, and deep empathy for which he has been highly acclaimed. Here also is a satirical streak that depicts individuals at uncanny and all-too-familiar turning points in their lives. The alienated find sanctuary in ÒThe Safehouse,Ó their histories and diagnoses written like endless ads on their T-shirts. In ÒAndy Comes Back,Ó a man awakens after a five-year coma, only to flee his home. In ÒThe Eyes of the Soul,Ó perpetual televised beauty replaces the derelict view from a suburban picture window. In ÒFinesse,Ó a dictator holds his surgeon’s family hostage to the outcome of a risky operation. These sixteen stories move from unspeakable sadness through moments of exquisitely distilled happiness.

Michel Faber is that rarest of writers: a virtuoso who can move effortlessly from the futurist novel to the historical epic to the contemporary short story. In this, his second collection of stories, he levels his gaze at humanity in all its despair, it madness, its hope. Renown for its pitch-perfect prose, Faber’s work is fearlesslessly inventive, slyly satirical, and utterly spellbinding.

These 16 stories depict individuals at turning points in their lives, places often uncanny but always profoundly human. Whether his story features a taxidermist who ends up making an exhibit of himself, a group of sex-crazed executives in Indonesia, or a dictator holding a surgeon’s family hostage to the outcome of a risky operation, Faber creates characters with exquisite empathy. In The Safehouse the terminally alienated go to live out their lives, forsaking all contact with the outside world, their histories and diagnoses written like endless ads of their T Shirts. In The Eyes of the Soul a woman purchases perpetual televised beauty to replace the derelict view from her suburban picture window. In the title story, a man experiences a distilled moment of perfect happiness with his rebellious teenage son.

Faber is consistently one of our most interesting, daring, and accomplished writers.