A Study Guide for Robert Olen Butler's "Titanic Survivors Found in Bermuda Triangle," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
"An unrepeatable feat, a tour de force." --The Washington Post Book World In Tabloid Dreams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler dazzles with his mastery of the short story and his empathy for eccentric and ostracized characters. Using tabloid headlines as inspiration--"Boy Born with Tattoo of Elvis," "Woman Struck by Car Turns into Nymphomaniac," and "JFK Secretly Attends Jackie Auction"--Butler moves from the fantastic to the realistic, exploring enduring concepts of exile, loss, aspiration, and the search for self. Along the way, the cast includes a woman who can see through her glass eye when it's removed from the socket, a widow who sets herself on fire after losing a baking competition, a nine-year-old hit man, and a woman who dates an extraterrestrial she met in a Walmart parking lot. Tabloid Dreams weaves a seamless tapestry of high and low culture, of the surreal, sordid, and humorously sad.
Clifford Wilkes, a deserter, and Lanh, a former prostitute, are among the last to escape Saigon and attempt to start a new life together in the United States
In his dazzling new book of stories, Butler explores America by finding artistic inspiration in an unlikely and fascinating place--the backs of postcards from the early 20th century.
Pulitzer-winning Butler presents 62 stories, each exactly 240 words long, capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. The characters are both real and imagined, including Medusa and Anne Boleyn.
Basic College Mathematics will be a review of fundamental math concepts for some students and may break new ground for others. Nevertheless, students of all backgrounds will be delighted to find a refreshing book that appeals to all learning styles and reaches out to diverse demographics. Through down-to-earth explanations, patient skill-building, and exceptionally interesting and realistic applications, this worktext will empower students to learn and master mathematics in the real world.
The winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. An army intelligence captain is to be court-martialled for having kidnapped and set free a Viet Cong officer. This forces him to confront two sets of events - his own concern for the prisoner, and his memories of an affair with a Vietnamese woman.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: “Uncannily perceptive stories written by an American from the viewpoint of Vietnamese citizens transplanted to Louisiana” (People). A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is Robert Olen Butler’s Pulitzer Prize–winning collection of lyrical and poignant stories about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its enduring impact on the Vietnamese. Written in a soaring prose, Butler’s haunting and powerful stories blend Vietnamese folklore and contemporary American realities, creating a vibrant panorama that is epic in its scope. This new edition includes two previously uncollected stories—“Missing” and “Salem”—that brilliantly complete the collection’s narrative journey, returning to the jungles of Vietnam to explore the experiences of a former Vietcong soldier and an American MIA. “Deeply affecting . . . A brilliant collection of stories about storytellers whose recited folklore radiates as implicit prayer . . . One of the strongest collections I’ve read in ages.” —Ann Beattie
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author “shares his insights into—and passion for—the creation and experience of fiction with total openness” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and A Small Hotel, teaches graduate fiction at Florida State University—his version of literary boot camp. In From Where You Dream, Butler reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual, and tells writers how to achieve the dreamspace necessary for composing honest, inspired fiction. Proposing that fiction is the exploration of the human condition with yearning as its compass, Butler reinterprets the traditional tools of the craft using the dynamics of desire. Offering a direct view into the mind and craft of a literary master, From Where You Dream is an invaluable tool for the novice and experienced writer alike. “Incisive and provocative, Butler’s tutorials are a must for anyone even thinking about writing fiction, and readers, too, will benefit from his passionate exhortations.” —Booklist
John Dies at the End is a genre-bending, humorous account of two college drop-outs inadvertently charged with saving their small town--and the world--from a host of supernatural and paranormal invasions. Now a Major Motion Picture. "[Pargin] is like a mash-up of Douglas Adams and Stephen King... 'page-turner' is an understatement." —Don Coscarelli, director, Phantasm I-V, Bubba Ho-tep STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me. The important thing is this: The sauce is a drug, and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I'm sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault.
