Sweet Nothing

Stories

Contributors

By Richard Lange

On Sale
Nov 3, 2015
Page Count
288 pages
Publisher
Mulholland Books
ISBN-13
9780316327589

Set on the dark side of Los Angeles, the masterful new collection from an award-winning and highly praised “natural-born storyteller” (Ron Rash).

In these gripping and intense stories, Richard Lange returns to the form that first landed him on the literary map. These are edge-of-your-seat tales: A prison guard must protect an inmate being tried for heinous crimes. A father and son set out to rescue a young couple trapped during a wildfire. An ex-con trying to make good as a security guard stumbles onto a burglary plot. A young father must submit to blackmail to protect the fragile life he’s built.

Sweet Nothing is an unforgettable collection that shows once again why T.C. Boyle wrote, “Lange’s stories combine the truth-telling and immediacy of Raymond Carver with the casual hip of Denis Johnson. There is a potent artistic sensibility at work here” (on Dead Boys).

  • Praise for SWEET NOTHING:
    "What makes this collection a wonderful read is that it's only marginally akin to anything else. Swift, gut-wrenching, and sometimes cleverly disarming fiction by a master."
    Joe R. Lansdale, author of The Thicket and Edge of Dark Water
  • "Richard Lange's stories are a revelation. He writes of the disaffections and bewilderments of ordinary lives with as keen an anger and searing lyricism as anybody out there today. He is Raymond Carver reborn in a hard cityscape. Read him and be amazed."
    T.C. Boyle, author of San Miguel
  • "For me the best stories are rabbit holes. You read the first lines, maybe a page, and you're down there. Somewhere else. Another life. Richard Lange is one cwazy wabbit."
    James Sallis, author of Drive
  • "I've been reading Richard Lange's work since Dead Boys blew my doors off years ago, and goddamn, the man just keeps getting better. The stories in Sweet Nothing traffic in the vagaries of the human heart, those wants and needs that push us down dark paths. His vision is steely-eyed, yet you sense that Lange loves his characters-even the worst of them-and that compassion sharpens your own emotional investment in this powerful brace of stories."
    Craig Davidson, author of Cataract City

Formats and Prices

Price

$15.99

Price

$19.49 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $15.99 $19.49 CAD
  2. ebook $6.99 $8.99 CAD

Richard Lange

About the Author

Richard Lange is the author of the story collections Dead Boys and Sweet Nothing and the novels This Wicked World, Angel Baby, and The Smack. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the International Association of Crime Writers’ Hammett Prize, a Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Award, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Los Angeles.

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