Reviews
Fountain's confidence in taking on real world problems is matched by his reluctance to pontificate or judge., Superb debut story collection... Fountain knows the Third World; he [writes] with a precision that suggests firsthand knowledge., Fountain ... gets his message across without forsaking characterization and vivid descriptiveness. . .a revealing view of the human condition., Short-story collections don't come much better than this. Brief Encounters With Che Guevara offers pointed prose, nimble revelation..., In this first collection the author brings the virtuosity of Greene and le Carre to tales of foreign adventures., He imbues each narrative with an understanding of international politics and conflicts, and the sticky moral complexities involved., Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write., 'Ben Fountain...blew me out of the water. These stories are absolutely jaw-dropping.'(Audrey Bullar, team leader, Jospeh-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, Ohio, for PW's Galley Talk), ...the ambition and global outlook of Fountain's fiction marks a welcome addition to the literature produced in our state., ... Fountain chooses just the right details, metaphors, similes and descriptions...life rendered in sentences seem[s] as life lived., Ben Fountain takes readers all over the world, navigating the alleys of the human soul with an expert's hand., Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write...|9780060885601|, Fountain has the storytelling gifts to bring the world home to us and a moral compass set to true north., It is such an unexpected joy, in this age of introspection, to discover an American writer with a global outlook., ...Fountain's Stories Reach for a Broader Engagement...This Book Is a Step in the Right Direction.