Fishing the Sloe-Black River: Stories

Colum McCann

Macmillan, Feb 1, 2004 - Fiction - 208 pages

The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street. Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a work of pure augury, of the channeling and re-spoken lives of people exposed to the beauty of the everyday.

What people are saying

Review: Fishing the Sloe-Black River

User Review  - Jojanneke van den Bosch - Goodreads

Absolutely colourfully told stories. McCann grasps his characters and taps into their thoughts. In a recent interview, McCann has said that he has had a rather pleasant childhood. If that's true, this means that the man is a truly gifted storyteller.

Review: Fishing the Sloe-Black River

User Review - Goodreads

The audiobook Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a book of 12 short stories, narrated by Clodagh Bowyer, Tim Smallwood, Paul Nugent, Fiana Toibin, Sean Gormley, John Keating and Ed Malone. The Irish ...

Contents

• Sisters: 1
• Breakfast for Enrique: 25
• A Basket Full of Wallpaper: 39
• Through the Field: 55
• Stolen Child: 71
• Step We Gaily On We Go: 89
• A Word in Edgewise: 113
• From Many One: 129
• Along the Riverwall: 173

About the author

Colum McCann is the author of  books including This Side of Brightness, Zoli, Songdogs and Let the Great World Spin. He has received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, and was named the first winner of the Grace Kelly Memorial Foundation Award and the Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Fishing the Sloe-Black River: Stories
• Author: Colum McCann
• Edition: 2, reprint
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2004
• ISBN: 0312423381, 9780312423384
• Length: 208 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Short Stories (single author)