Gates of Eden

Gates of Eden
by Ethan Coen

Gates of Eden
List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $2.00
You Save: $11.95 (86%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Ethan Coen
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-11-09
ISBN: 0385334389
Number of pages: 261
Publisher: Delta

Book Reviews of Gates of Eden

Book Review: Help! Coen turned people into pulp!
Summary: 5 Stars

Well no, these aren't actual people in Coen's stories, but they are 'real' and brilliantly drawn. The dark humor those familiar with the Coen Bros. movies is ever-present in these stories, and Ethan proves he's as capable a writer as a storyteller, with very clever use (and abuse) of language and clever turns of phrase.

I suppose what I enjoyed most is that every chapter of this short-story collection is a *story*, rather than just a writing exercise from a creative writing course. These stories are populated by *characters*, and the actions of these characters advance the *plot*. Each is pure fun to read, and again, are excellent *stories*. They're about people, and the things people do, and how screwed up the whole species really it.

Summary of Gates of Eden

A middle-aged man beheads his wife, then calmly explains how she drove him to it . . . A fat little mafioso is going to war--in the clean, well-mannered streets of Minneapolis . . . A Jewish boy watches with wonder the rise and fall of a Hebrew school rebel--and sees the sadness at the heart of his own family. . . . Welcome to the world of Ethan Coen, one half of the filmmaking team that has unleashed a visionary, brutal, and uproarious portrait of America in such screen classics as Fargo and Raising Arizona. Now Ethan Coen translates that vision to the printed page--in fourteen keenly imagined, sharply etched short stories. Blending parody with pathos, making the heinous heartbreaking, Coen demonstrates his unique gift for stunningly inventive narrative, brutal irony, offbeat characters, and crackling dialogue, delivering everything you would expect from such an original imagination.
Even if it didn't contain a chomped ear and a decapitated head, Ethan Coen's debut fiction collection would resemble the horrifically giggly crime films of the Coen brothers (Fargo, etc.). You've got the bleakly realistic Midwest settings: a frazzled dad driven crazy driving his kids on a camping trip in "The Boys." You've got the minutia of the middle-class life captured down to the last speck of "abstractly speckled linoleum" ("The Old Country"). You've got comically incompetent thugs (Mafiosi spectacularly failing to bring Mob rule to Minneapolis in "Cosa Minapolidan," a college-boy boxer turned private dick in "Destiny"). You've got ghastly, amusing caricatures of showbiz moguls: the record-company guy soliloquizing in "Have You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland" could be as real as his allusions to the personal foibles of Cat Stevens and Danny Thomas. Above all, you've got a mockingly self-conscious yet vibrantly original style of pulp-culture homage and spoofy, sharp, vulgar dialogue like nobody else on earth can write, except Joel Coen (who cowrites movies with brother Ethan).

In print, Coen can show off a descriptive gift that can't fit into screenplays. His fiction is bright and never boring, but not ambitious--it lacks the obbligato of grim mystery and lyricism that throbs in some of his films. It's on the light side--more like Raising Arizona than Miller's Crossing. It's also the most penetrating glimpse into a Coen brother's mystery-crammed skull since the revealing The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film. --Tim Appelo

Short Stories Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Short Stories Books
The Roald Dahl Treasury ImageThe Roald Dahl Treasury
by Roald Dahl
Jonathan Cape; Published: 1997; Hardcover; Book
The Red Pony (Twentieth-Century Classics) ImageThe Red Pony (Twentieth-Century Classics)
by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 1994-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.28
Price in other shops: $12.00
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain ImageA Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
by Robert Olen Butler
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.15
Price in other shops: $12.95
Guys and Dolls: The Stories of Damon Runyon ImageGuys and Dolls: The Stories of Damon Runyon
by Damon Runyon
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1992-11-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $44.17
How We Are Hungry ImageHow We Are Hungry
by Dave Eggers
PENGUIN; Published: 2006-02-23; Paperback; Book
Dressing Up for the Carnival ImageDressing Up for the Carnival
by Carol Shields
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.79
Price in other shops: $15.00
East, West ImageEast, West
by Salman Rushdie
Vintage Books; Published: 2006-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops: $10.50
Local Girls ImageLocal Girls
by Alice Hoffman
Vintage/Ebury (a Division of Random; Published: 2000-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.25
Price in other shops: $17.75
Someone to Watch Over Me: Stories ImageSomeone to Watch Over Me: Stories
by Richard Bausch
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-05-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops: $13.00
Faithless: Tales of Transgression ImageFaithless: Tales of Transgression
by Joyce Carol Oates
Ecco; Published: 2001-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.04
Price in other shops: $15.90
Similar Books and other products
The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Other Plays ImageThe Beauty Queen of Leenane and Other Plays
by Martin McDonagh
Vintage; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.46
Price in other shops: $15.95
No Country For Old Men [Blu-ray] ImageNo Country For Old Men [Blu-ray]
LGF; Release date: 2011-04-26; Blu-ray
Best price: $8.45
Price in other shops: $19.99
Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder ImageZoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder
Samson; Zoom; Samson; Release date: 2009-03-02; Electronics; Musical Instruments
Price in other shops: $609.99
Burn After Reading [Blu-ray] ImageBurn After Reading [Blu-ray]
Universal Studios; Release date: 2008-12-21; Blu-ray
Best price: $5.87
Price in other shops: $14.98
A Serious Man ImageA Serious Man
Release date: 2011-09-01; Amazon Instant Video; Movie
Best price: $2.99
Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy: How to Philosophize With a Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch (Popular Culture and Philosophy) ImageQuentin Tarantino and Philosophy: How to Philosophize With a Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch (Popular Culture and Philosophy)
Open Court; Published: 2007-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops: $17.95
Almost an Evening ImageAlmost an Evening
by Ethan Coen
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2009-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: $13.00
The Coen Brothers: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers) ImageThe Coen Brothers: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)
University Press of Mississippi; Published: 2006-08-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops: $25.00
Almost an Evening - Acting Edition ImageAlmost an Evening - Acting Edition
by Ethan Coen
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.; Published: 2010-10-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way: Poems ImageThe Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way: Poems
by Ethan Coen
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2009-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops: $13.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories