FROM THE PUBLISHER

After nine critically acclaimed novels, Russell Banks has firmly established himself as one of the great American novelists. But throughout his career Banks has also been a master of the short form, publishing four story collections, winning O. Henry and Best American Short Story Awards and other prizes, and contributing stories to such publications as Esquire, New American Review, Antaeus, Mississippi Review, and Partisian Review. Now, with The Angel on the Roof, Banks offers readers an astonighsing collection of thirty years of his short fiction. As is characteristic of all Banks's works, these stories resonate with irony and compassion, honsty and insight, extending into the vast territory of the heart and world, from working-class New England to Florida and the Caribbean and Africa. Along with nine new stories that are among the finest fiction he has ever written, Banks has selected the best pieces from his previous collections and revised them especially for this volume. Broad in scope and rich in imagination, The Angel on the Roof is a true representation of the breadth of Russell Bank's work and affirms his place on one of the masters of American storytelling.

FROM THE CRITICS

Newsday

His new book, The Angel on the Roof, includes nine new stories and twenty-two from previous collections. At age sixty, Banks seems to be going from strength to strength. The new ones are among his best. . . .Unfathomable, grangrenous, necessary, the urge to create continues to push Russell banks to new levels of excellence,

Nation

His prose has the precise force of a steady, measured outrage...He writes with a more merciless exactitude than Dreiser ever had, and with greater and more self-conscious skill.

Village Voice

Banks's stories, openly embracing perplexity and edging toward wisdom, deliver us from banality.

Boston Globe

Russell Banks is a writer of extraordinary power.

New York Post

This collection of short stories displays the same strong sense of character and prose style that have distinguished his novels.Read all 12 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Russell Banks's work presents without falsehood and with a tough affection the uncompromising moral voice of our time. You find the craziness of false dreams, the political inequalities, and somehow the sliver of redemption. I trust his portrait of America more than any othr-the burden of it, the need for it, the hell of it. — Michael Ondaatje