Oyster

Oyster

by JohnBiguenet (Author)

Synopsis

It's the mid-1950s and the Petitjeans and the Bruneaus have farmed oysters in Louisiana for hundreds of years. Bitter rivals, the two families struggle to survive, their boats mortgaged to the next harvest, their emotions soured by the grievances they pass down to their children. Now the oyster beds are threatened - and with them both families' livelihoods. The solution is a marriage between the headstrong young Therese Petitjean and Horse, the brutal patriarch of the Bruneau clan. But then a body is trawled in with the shrimp, and so begins a cycle of revenge that can only end one way..."Oyster" is a story of greed, passion and fierce rivalry. This is an environment in which people save themselves if they are to be saved at all. 'Biguenet uses a prose style redolent with the sense of mystery emanating from the land and from the murky bayous that litter it. The sense of place is remarkable in this outstanding first novel, and the people who inhabit it are evoked in all their primitive splendour. Recommended' - "Irish Times".

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Orion
Published: 07 Aug 2003

ISBN 10: 0752842277
ISBN 13: 9780752842271
Book Overview: John Biguenet has published short stories in ESQUIRE, HARPERS and GRANTA, and is having one of his short stories developed into a feature film in this country. He is a rare find. 'OYSTER catches perfectly the language and cadences of the time as it unwinds slowly to its tragic end...Good enough to eat' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Suspenseful and intriguing, with a sultry atmosphere and seething passions' USA TODAY 'This is a novel about family and derives its power from the strength of Biguenet's wonderfully drawn characters. OYSTER is a fantastic story that is told with such confidence and style that it is hard to believe that this is Biguenet's first novel' ENIGMA 'Biguenet... catches the scents and sounds of the bayou, and his characters bristle with a dark intensity' NEW YORK TIMES 'Biguenet's elegant, spare prose brilliantly depicts the personalities involved and their struggle to survive in the bleak, watery landscape' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Biguenet writes with a restrained elegance, evoking with great clarity life on the bayou... [he] immerses us completely in the Bruneaus and Petitjeans and their world' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'An outstanding first novel' ESQUIRE

Media Reviews
'In places, Oyster reads like Romeo and Juliet crossed with Deliverance, but Biguenet manages to make you care about his cast of redneck killers, and the clever plotting keeps your attention...Oyster glowers with the steamy menace of the swamps' DAILY TELEGRAPH
Author Bio
John Biguenet is the author of a novel, Oyster, and a story collection, The Torturer's Apprentice. The winner of an O. Henry Award, he has published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in such journals as Granta, Esquire, Playboy, Story, Zoetrope, and DoubleTake as well as in various anthologies. He is currently the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.