The Water Museum: Stories

Description

From one of America's preeminent literary voices comes a new story collection that proves once again why the writing of Luis Alberto Urrea has been called "wickedly good" (Kansas City Star), "cinematic and charged" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and "studded with delights" (Chicago Tribune). Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honour of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice. Suffused with wanderlust, compassion, and no small amount of rock and roll, THE WATER MUSEUM is a collection that confirms Luis Alberto Urrea as an American master.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Luis Alberto Urrea is the bestselling author of The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, and Queen of America, among others. He has won the Lannan Literary Award, the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize, an American Book Award, the Christopher Award, and an Edgar Award, among other honors. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, he lives outside of Chicago and is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

"Pitch-perfect and penetrating, The Water Museum traverses the rich borderlands of the human heart with humor, mystery, and grit."--Ploughshares "Urrea has a wonderful eye for details and captures each story's context with wonderfully sharp observations... These stories are vibrant, tender, and invoke a strong sense of place."--Publisher's Weekly "A spirited and enjoyable fable."--San Francisco Chronicle "All 13 stories are realistic and unsparing, as unflinching and hard-hitting as they are beautiful. It's difficult to find comparisons to an author as original as Urrea, a kind of literary badass who still believes in love. The Water Museum is a brilliant, powerful collection, and Luis Alberto Urrea is a master storyteller with a rock and roll heart."--NPR.org "Awash in a subtle kind of satire...A funny and poignant impossible journey...Into the Beautiful North is a refreshing antidote to all the negativity currently surrounding Mexico."--Roberto Ontiveros, Dallas Morning News "Like Urrea, we care deeply for his characters. He writes with compassion and humor and with a nod to the creeping darkness within us all."--The Oregonian "Magical."--Vanity Fair "Riotously funny....A wonderfully entertaining novel."--Philadelphia Inquirer "Urrea skillfully evokes the semi-comic experience of the sensitive observer who is both part of and outside of a community... Magic."--The Washington Post "Urrea, celebrated for his historical sagas and nonfiction, offers 13 stories that reflect both sides of his Mexican-American heritage while stretching the reader's understanding of human boundaries...Urrea's command of language is matched only by his empathy for his characters."--Kirkus (Starred Review) "Urrea's poetic instincts often lead to his most moving asides."--The Santa Fe New Mexican PRAISE FOR INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH: "Deliciously composed...[Urrea writes] in a sweet but serious style...The plot gathers as much strength as the prose." --Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune