Theroux, Paul (Vol. 5) - Theroux, Paul 1941–
Theroux, Paul 1941–
Theroux, an American novelist, short story writer, critic, and poet, has travelled and lived abroad—primarily in England and equatorial lands—for the last decade. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 33-36.)
"Sinning With Annie and Other Stories" is a finely written [short story] collection about the come-uppance of the mildly ruthless, those nasties who abuse people to get what they want only to find no joy in their prize…. For their nastiness always breeds guilt, and the fight for their great goody always leaves them sickish. Their success is muted by remorse; their remorse is dampened by the impulse to do it again. Theroux's talent is for this middle grayness, for the mellowest anxiety and the thinnest vibrations of evil….
Theroux is a master of trimmers, those neither-here-nor-there sorts who cannot feel happy, but who are not too miserable either. He writes with elegance of the wry, the rueful, the...
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