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THE DAUGHTERS OF SIMON LAMOREAUX
Scribner, May 2000, Hardcover [ISBN: 0-684-85414-7]
From the question mark of its opening riddle to the exclamation point of its final revelation, David Long’s new novel sustains an ability to hold its reader hostage. A story of two strangers in the night on a quest to understand first the past, then one another, The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux is a tense, deeply nocturnal tale of intrigue -- smartly written and always true to the essential mysteriousness of experience.
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— Billy Collins, Author of Picnic, Lightning
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THE FALLING BOY
Scribner, 1997, Hardcover [ISBN: 0-684-80034-9]
Plume, 1998, Paperback [ISBN: 0-452-2799-6]
In his sumptuous, finely crafted first novel, set in a Montana town during the 1950s and 60s, David Long charts the inner life of a young carpenter, Mark Singer, whose marriage to Olivia Stavros draws him into the tensions and joys of family life.
Reading . . . The Falling Boy is a lot like watching a baseball pitcher work on a no-hitter. From the beginning, you notice the quality of Long’s writing, his economical prose the equivalent of throwing strikes. By the middle of the book, though, you realize you’re in the presence of something special, an achievement that doesn’t come along every day. . . With The Falling Boy, Long not only manages to close out the no-hitter, he comes tantalizingly near to a perfect game.
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— David L. Ulin, Newsday
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Not since John Updike’s Marry Me, perhaps, has there been such an honest and unflinching moral examination of marital infidelity as this finely crafted novel by the author of the prize-winning story collection, Blue Spruce |
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— Library Journal
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BLUE SPRUCE [Short Stories]
Scribner, 1995, Hardcover [ISBN: 0-684-80033-0]
Scribner, 1996, Trade Paperback [ISBN: 0-684-81589-3]
The 12 stories in Mr. Long’s new book explore how we nourish the "crimp" in ourselves — habits of meanness and fear — and how we manage to expand. Some of the stories explode into being, but most require the reader’s patient orientation as relationships and consequences shape themselves. All are written in a beautiful, fine-cut prose that shines and surprises... If there is a way to avoid ending up mean-eyed, tightfisted and scared, it’s by consciously choosing to abandon a crimped self for a more generous one. The characters in Blue Spruce don’t have to be young to make this choice or particularly bold or broad of soul. More than anything, they have to be weary of not making it. Weary of hushing the self’s true voice.
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— Lisa Sandlin - New York Times Book Review
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[Starred review]. Twelve, precise, thoughtfully written and strangely seductive stories... They come alive at unexpected moments with a sudden forcefulness: a surprise surges through a matter-of-fact description like a lightning bolt . . . Long is a true craftsman |
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THE FLOOD OF ‘64 [Short Stories]
The Ecco Press, 1987, Hardcover [ISBN: 0-88001-127-0]
The Ecco Press, 1988, Paperback [ISBN: 0-88001-108-4]
This collection of stories, set in the harsh and ungiving landscape of western Montana, is tough-minded and exhilarating . . . As though inspired by the frontier spirit, these stories go their own way, disdaining literary fashion in their leisurely pacing, staying true to their wayward, likable people.
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— Greg Johnson, The New York Times Book Review
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David Long’s stories . . . reverberate. He is an important new voice in the American short story. Like Faulkner, David Long gives us a world which illuminates our lives. |
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— The Short Story Review
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HOME FIRES [Short Stories]
University of Illinois Press, 1982, Hardcover [ISBN: 0-252-00991-6]
Paperback [ISBN: 0-252-00992-4]
He’s good, so good . . . There is plot. And there is resolution. And there is satisfaction for the reader. Long characters, like Long settings, make natural sense. In his expansive landscapes, there is room for sentiment next to harsh reality.
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— Art Siedenbaum, The Los Angeles Times
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PERFECTION [Short Story] (limited edition)
Kutenai Press, 1993 |
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EARLY RETURNS [Poems]
Jawbone Press, 1981
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Short Stories published in The New Yorker, GQ, Story, Antaeus, The Sewanee Review, and others. Reprinted in anthologies, including Nothing But You: Love Stories from the New Yorker; The Viking Portable Western Reader; Best of the West 5; Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards; New Writers of the Purple Sage; Voices Louder Than Words; The Last Best Place; The Graywolf Annual 4; New American Stories; Pushcart 6
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