Success Stories

In Success Stories, an exceptionally varied yet coherent collection, Russell Banks proves himself one of the most astute and forceful writers in America today. "Queen for a Day," "Success Story," and "Adultery" trace the fortunes of the Painter family in their pursuit of and retreat from the American dream. Banks also explores the ethos of rampant materialism in a group of contemporary moral fables. "The Fish" is a evocative parable of faith and greed set in a Southeast Asian village, "The Gully" tells of the profitability of violence and the ironies of upward mobility in a Latin American shantytown, and "Children's Story" explores the repressed rage that boils beneath the surface of relationships between parents and children and between citizens of the first and third worlds. SC, 192 pages.