Good Trouble Pdf Summary Reviews By Joseph O’Neill

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Good Trouble Pdf Summary

A masterly collection of eleven stories about the way we live now from the best-selling author of Netherland.

From bourgeois facial hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, the underlying violence, and, sometimes, the surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early twenty-first century. A lonely wedding guest talks to a goose; a pair of poets struggle over whether to participate in a “pardon Edward Snowden” verse petition; a cowardly husband lets his wife face a possible intruder in their home; a potential co-op renter in New York City can’t find anyone to give him a character reference. On the surface, these men and women may only be in mild trouble, but O’Neill reminds us of the real, secretly political consequences of our internal monologues in these perfectly made, fiercely modern stories. No writer is more incisive about the strange world we live in now, and the laugh-out-loud vulnerability of his people is just as well fodder for tears.

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Good Trouble Review

Bonnie Brody

TOP 1000 REVIEWER

4.0 out of 5 stars How Alone We All Are
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2019

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What’s this? )

Good Trouble is the first book of short stories by Joseph O’Neill that I’ve read. I read and loved Ghost Light, an earlier novel he wrote, and though I enjoyed Good Trouble, I did not find it as wonderful as Ghost Light.

I enjoyed individual stories and found several of them interesting, comical, and bordering on the surreal. ‘The Trusted Traveler’ had me laughing as a retired professor and his wife entertain one of the professor’s former students every year despite the fact that the professor doesn’t even remember him. ‘The World of Cheese’ had me smiling about the antics and misunderstandings that occur in families regularly. The stakes were a bit higher in this family but their dysfunction conjured up a majority of families I’ve known. In ‘The Referees’, Rob needs references to rent a condo in Brooklyn. He realizes that he is very limited in who he can ask and goes to desperate measures to try and secure two references. Tom Rourke is turning 40 and asks his friends to join him on a golfing trip to Florida. Only two agree to go with him, neither particularly close to Tom. Tom hears a clip on the radio about Billy Joel and, for some odd reason, believes he’s died. ‘Ponchos’, one of my favorite stories, explores the essence of aloneness and loneliness. My all-time favorite story in the collection is ‘The Poltroon Husband’, A couple move into their ‘last’ house, the one that they will remain in forever.

One night, the wife hears a noise in the middle of the night and her husband feels literally paralyzed and cannot get up to investigate. Neither of them bring the incident up again though the husband wonders for months if his wife holds his inertia against him. ‘Goose’ is about Robert, who travels to Italy to attend a wedding of his old Dartmouth friend. He expects to see many of his college buddies there but he is the only one in attendance. The morning after the wedding, he finds out that his dog’s surgery back home went bad and that his dog is dead. Later on, during the after wedding party, Robert sees a goose and becomes obsessed with it. “He looks away from the goose but finds he cannot look at anything without thinking that it’s all goose, that he is already buried, everything is burying ground out of which nothing can ever be unburied.” ‘The Sinking of the Houston’ is about a 15 year old boy telling his father that he and his two friends were mugged on a subway. The mugger took the son’s phone. The father gets caught up in anger about the mugging and wants to begin a stakeout to find the mugger. “Like every criminal, he has overlooked a detail. That kid he threatened and robbed? That kid is my son.” Will dad get his revenge or leave things be?

All but two of O’Neill’s stories held my interest but none of them will likely remain in my memory long-term. O’Neill is an excellent writer but I think his forte is the novel.

atm

VINE VOICE

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointment is a common aspect of life. Not everything is finished
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2019

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What’s this? )

This is a random mix of stories. In each, is a subtle sense of disappointment.
There are 11 in all ranging from a poet, that sees others getting their due and remaining on the sidelines, to a man hoping for an apartment referral from old acquaintances and not quite getting the answers he is expecting.
In a nutshell life is full of disappointments, and expectations unfulfilled. Of course the key word here is expectation. Like Facebook and the phenomena called “FOMO”. We fear we are missing out of accolades, ease and overall inclusion everyone else is seemingly getting. There the key word is “seemingly”.
This book is a snippet in a life, things are not resolved or answered just left. The writing changes with the character, so you get a sense of a different person. However I didn’t particularly care for the lack of wrap up.

About Joseph O’Neill Author Of Good Trouble Pdf Book

Joseph O’Neill Author Of Good Trouble Pdf Book was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1964 and grew up in Mozambique, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, and Holland. His previous works include the novels This is the Life and The Breezes, and the non-fiction book Blood-Dark Track, a family history centered on the mysterious imprisonment of both his grandfathers during World War II, which was an NYT Notable Book. He writes regularly for The Atlantic. He lives with his family in New York City.