Cruising Paradise : Tales

Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: By selecting just the right every-day words, Shepard latches onto the simple joys of life that we often overlook as live them. His observations resonate with our own experiences. From the hilarious chaos of the film shoot in the Mexican jungle, to the beautiful mismatch of cultures among the football spectators, Shepard asks us, "Ain't life grand?" and shows us why it is. I listened to the audio cassettes (masterfully read by the author) twice already, and plan to listen to them again whenever I need my faith in literature and life restored.

Rating:
Summary: A lean muscular book!
Review: Cruising Paradise is a lean muscular book. The writing is sometimes brutal and always powerful. His writing is reminiscent of Hemingway and Jim Harrison, but with a Southwestern flair and a stronger sense of immediacy. It is not the plots or so much the characters in the story that drive the book, but the sense of movement and restlessness in the stories peppered with stoicism that make his stories so interesting. His stories seem to be autobiographical, even those he clearly passes off as fiction. Recommended stories in the book are Nuevo Mundo, A Small Company of Friends, and Cruising Paradise. If you are sick of reading books that seemed contrived or cliche' give this one a look.

Rating:
Summary: A lean muscular book!
Review: Cruising Paradise is a lean muscular book. The writing is sometimes brutal and always powerful. His writing is reminiscent of Hemingway and Jim Harrison, but with a Southwestern flair and a stronger sense of immediacy. It is not the plots or so much the characters in the story that drive the book, but the sense of movement and restlessness in the stories peppered with stoicism that make his stories so interesting. His stories seem to be autobiographical, even those he clearly passes off as fiction. Recommended stories in the book are Nuevo Mundo, A Small Company of Friends, and Cruising Paradise. If you are sick of reading books that seemed contrived or cliche' give this one a look.

Rating:
Summary: Experience art
Review: Through Cruising Paradise the voice of Sam Shepard kept me company during a week or two. I read his fragmented stories before falling asleep and felt at ease. I think it's the way he uses the language; lucid, clear, to the point, intense. The language flows and takes you to the images of endless roads, wide open spaces and the people who live there or just drive through it . You can feel the heat, you can hear the conversations, while all the time, in the back of your head Shepards voice leads you. He doesn't describe the situations in very much detail, he just lets the people talk, or think and that's enough. Wonderful experience. I believe it is the art of leaving out, to show what's there, in language and in imagery. Hope to find this again.

Rating:
Summary: Experience art
Review: When we're constantly being sold substandard rubbish from ... ( you know who the usual suspects are) here's a writer worthy of the title. And he's not even someone who we know for his short stories. The writing here conjures up the subjects vividly and mysteriously, hinting at the spiritual resonance of the every day, much as do the best of Robert Frost's poems. Some of the dialgues manage to catch the cadences of the venacular with the same precision as Damon Runyon or James Elroy but with a genuine poetic reach. Simply marvelous.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: While reading this book, I had to stop more than a few times either to catch my breath or close my eyes and let what I just read sink in. I grew up down on the Mexican border, and Shepard's descriptions of events in that part of the world rang true, and were written in a terse manner, as is appropriate for the setting and characters. Brilliant.