The Secrets of a Fire King: Stories - Hardcover

Kim Edwards has won numerous awards, including a Whiting Award and the Nelson Algren Award and most recently the Kentucky Literary Award for fiction. She is the author of a collection of short stories, The Secrets Of a Fire King, which was an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Anteaus, Story, and The Paris Review and have received a National Magazine Awards for excellence in Fiction and a Pushcart Prize. A graduate of the Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, she currently teaches writing at the University of Kentucky. This is her first novel, which has been chosen as a Barnes and Noble Discover title. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and daughters.

Its always delicious to discover wonderful writing made more so in audio. Such a marriage of talent is to be found in Edwardss Fire King, stories published in 1997 and revived after the success of her Memory Keepers Daughter. Though she has but a brief time to establish the mood and persona of each story, Bernadette Dunne succeeds totally. Whether she is a clueless matron in Malaysia, the disillusioned daughter of a right-to-life crusader, or the lovesick fire-eater of the title, she hits just the right mood and voice. The locales are often lush, and while the tellers--the neglected daughter of a powerful Indian man, Madame Curies cleaning lady, a street performer--are not world-beaters, Dunne gives them dignity. In doing so, she gives us a listening treat. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine