Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby

May 3, 2025 10:15 PM

Author:Donald Barthelme

'I said that although hanging Colby was almost certainly against the law, we had a perfect moral right to do so because he was our friend, belonged to us in various important senses, and he had after all gone too far.'

Donald Barthelme is a puckish player with language, a writer of short but endlessly rewarding comic gems, a thinker and an experimenter. In these nine short stories, whether writing about a hairy, donkeyish king or a touching, private gesture of city-sized proportions, his is a surreal, deadpan genius.

This book includes Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, The Glass Mountain, I Bought a Little City, The Palace at Four A.M., Chablis, The School, Margins, Game and The Balloon.

Reviews

A. L. Kennedy is one of the most brilliant writers of her generation

—— Sunday Telegraph

This woman is a profound writer

—— Richard Ford

A collection of fifteen exquisite and troubling tales... It is a particular delight to discover a writer as original as A. L. Kennedy

—— Mail on Sunday

The clarity, wit and description of her style are uplifting... A writer in her thirties, who is becoming one of Britain's best

—— The Times

A writer of linguistic brilliance, balm-bearing humanity and blissful originality

—— Scotsman

Kennedy writes with flaying precision about things we won't often admit to ourselves, let alone speak aloud

—— Daily Mail

KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock is the best book I have ever read. This is the America they don't let you see on television. This is real literature. It will be read for centuries

—— Michael Guinzburg

It's as if you put David Lynch, Denis Johnson, and a drunk speed freak body builder into a blender. The result are some of the darkest, wildest, most messed up, hilarious stories I've ever read. Knockemstiff is really something

—— Willy Vlautin

This short story collection gives those new to her oeuvre a chance to delve into gems from her past...precociously vibrant

—— Melissa McClements , Financial Times

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