Tom Bissell is a very detail oriented journalist for magazines such as Harpers Magazine, The Believer and others. Being such a stickler for such things you wouldnt think that he would be able to produce good works of fiction. Well hes proving that wrong with his short story collection God Lives in St. Petersburg which is a collection of works all connected by the theme of Americans adrift in Central Asia.
I'm reading Chasing the Sea right now. It's an excellent piece of hard-hitting journalism and travel writing set in Uzbekistan, and I absolutely am going to read God Lives in St. Petersburg too.
Sorry DRE, but the one thing i took from this interview was...
Your book is unusual for a book of short stories all written by the same author in that all the stories are so closely connected by theme.
...which is one of the most false generalisations about short stories i've read. Unifying themes are more often that not integral to short story collections.
courtneyriot
STAFF
Los Angeles, CA
JUN 21, 2005 06:00 AM