Trailerpark

Rating:
Summary: This is an excellent description of human characteristics.
Review: I just finished this book; it is a fast read that provides really good descriptions of the human condition. It is insightful, and in places, quite eloquent. The depictions are so real that you will recognize the people in the story, but have to change their names.

Rating:
Summary: This just gets sadder and sadder...
Review: Not sure if there's a certain "order" one should read Banks' books in, but I started with "Rule of the Bone" which I enjoyed so much I immediately bought "Trailerpark" and then "Book of Jamaica" (which I have not yet read). In this collection of short stories, we see a cast of characters that, at first glance, could be from Anytown USA. As the stories develop, at first humourous then getting progressively more bleak, we begin to realize that what makes the characters unique, as in "Rule of the Bone," is their life in the rural northeast. I love the way the lives of the tenants of the Granite State Trailerpark are intertwined; it's just a fabulous read.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and wonderful
Review: The stories in this book have stayed with me for years. Russell Banks writes beautiful, improbable and totally realistic characters that suck you in and who you will carry them around with you for a long time afterward.