A Permanent Member of the Family, Russell Banks
A Permanent Member of the Family, Russell Banks
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A Permanent Member of the Family

Author: Russell Banks

Narrator: Danny Campbell, Andrus Nichols, Robin Miles

Unabridged: 5 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 11/12/2013


Synopsis

Suffused with Russell Banks’s trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try—and sometimes fail—to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world.In the title story, a father looks back on the legend of the cherished family dog whose divided loyalties mirrored the fragmenting of his marriage. “A Former Marine” asks, to chilling effect, if one can ever stop being a parent. And in the haunting, evocative “Veronica,” a mysterious woman searching for her daughter may not be who she claims she is.Moving between the stark beauty of winter in upstate New York and the seductive heat of Florida, Banks’s acute and penetrating collection demonstrates the range and virtuosity of both his narrative prowess and his startlingly panoramic vision of modern American life.

About Russell Banks

Russell Banks, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and he received numerous prizes and awards, including the Common Wealth Award for Literature. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-two.  


Reviews

Goodreads review by Will

Given the unsettled nature of the families in Russell Banks' dozen stories, the title of his sixth short story collection, A Permanent Member of the Family, might have a bit of an ironic aroma to it. Marriage is, if anything, impermanent here. The title character in Former Marine had to raise his bo......more

Goodreads review by Miriam

Russell Banks' talents are so numerous that it would be burdensome to list them. There is one skill, though, that sets him apart from most of his fellow writers: his ability to create characters who move you to tears. A Permanent Member of The Family makes you feel as if you were reading stories abo......more

Goodreads review by Julie

The cover of A Permanent Member of the Family shows a single robin's egg in a nest. It is an image that suggests beauty, hope, renewal, rebirth. Yet this sight of a single egg, alone and defenseless, is also a bit jarring. A Permanent Member of the Family shows the impermanence of what we cling to m......more

Goodreads review by Jill

Russell Banks’ short stories don’t rely on fireworks and bells and whistles; there’s no hint of post-modernism or genre bending in them. They’re deceptively simple and straightforward…even dispassionate in tone. Yet in many ways, they are morally complex; certainly, they pack a wallop. Most of them f......more

Goodreads review by Daisy

Like a less alcohol-sodden Raymond Carver, these short stories capture a brief period in the characters life, a life that Banks makes the reader believe was being lived before and will continue to be after we have stopped peering in through their window. Most of the stories focus on middle-aged, mid......more