Picture of author.

Tietoja tekijästä

Mark Jude Poirier grew up in Tucson, in a family of eleven children. He received a Maytag fellowship while at the Iowa Writers Workshop and was recently awarded a James A. Michener Fellowship. He is also a graduate of Georgetown, Stanford, and the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins. His stories have näytä lisää appeared in Jane, Bomb, and Tin House. He lives in Portland, Oregon. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän

Includes the name: Mark Poirier

Tekijän teokset

Goats (2000) 82 kappaletta
Naked Pueblo (1999) 54 kappaletta
Modern Ranch Living (2004) 45 kappaletta

Associated Works

Do Me: Sex Tales from Tin House (2007) — Avustaja — 39 kappaletta

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Yleistieto

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

One of my favorite novels with a male voice. Such a different and interesting journey to read. Highly recommend.
 
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lacey.tucker | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Mar 10, 2016 |
In this book Mark Jude Poirier paints a really interesting picture of what it's like growing up in a non-traditional home. Ellis' mother, Wendy, is a woman who cannot seem to find herself; she was once a hippy, but at the time of the novel is obsessed with spiritual growth and crystal magic. She seems to be completely obsessed with herself and unable to emotionally care for her son.

Ellis is an intelligent boy who despite his youth, must take care of his mother and has grown up to be an early adult and seemingly has most if not all of the morals of someone much older than himself.

Goat Man is Ellis' only friend, a man who teaching Ellis to smoke a bong at 11 years old, but also provides a family for him, helping him when he is beaten up by a girl at school and seeming to be the only person who cares for Ellis. The story has to do with how Ellis and Goat Man's relationship changes during one of their goat treks to Mexico.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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ThemeParkKid | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Dec 29, 2012 |
Fourteen year old Ellis lives with his mother in Tucson, sometimes there is a man in her life, his father lives in Washington with another woman. Ellis is about to start boarding school, his only real apprehension is leaving his mother to care for herself, she is far from organised and is likely to forget to pay the bills and Ellis, who is very bright and mature for his age, tends to take the responsibility for making sure everything is taken care of. Although he is also leaving Goat Man (Javier), who lives in the pool house but just looks after the pool and grounds, that is when he is not caring for his greenhouse crop of hybrid pot, or smoking it.

Ellis and Goat Man are very close, Goat Man introduced Ellis to pot when he was eleven, and often takes him on his treks into the desert with the goats.

The account takes us through Ellis' first year at his boarding school including his relationship with Barney his room mate, his school progress and other activates. He also meets with with his father and his new woman, makes a few visits home and the treks with Goat Man, and worries about his mother and her fads and strange relationships.

Goats is well written and captivating, although it just takes us through the workings of the year in the lives of this strange group of for the most part aimless characters and with little overall plot. It is at times funny, or perhaps amusing is a better description, but it is the quality of the writing that really holds ones interest and marks this well above average.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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presto | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 23, 2012 |
In Modern Ranch Living, Mark Jude Poirier spends a great deal of time detailing the eccentricities of life in Tucson. It’s an entertaining read, as bright and sweeping as the Arizona sun’s perpetual blanket upon the desert. How quaint are the characters within, specifically a sixteen year old exercise-obsessed and grammatically challenged Kendra Lumm, along with her awkwardly inanimate neighbor Merv, Splash World employee extraordinaire who lives with mother…at the age of thirty. How amusing it is to behold Kendra’s incessant indignation toward the unfit and uneducated in the ways of proper weightlifting and dietary habits as well as Merv's altruism in adjusting the catheters of certain Splash World patrons who need that extra bit of customer support.

One can undoubtedly progress through Modern Ranch Living without much of a care as to the result of the novel’s plot. Roughly, it concerns the whereabouts of a missing neighbor shared by Kendra and Merv; really though, it’s about how the characters find a release from the stagnation of the Arizona summer, as well as their own lives. As carefree as the atmosphere is, Poirier foreshadows almost too well, for towards the very end of the novel he destroys the whimsical and eccentric nature of the desert dwellers with a gut-check of uneasiness lingering well after the novel concludes. Modern Ranch Living deals with overcoming the disturbing behavior that while born out of weirdness and eccentricity, is nevertheless disturbing.
… (lisätietoja)
½
 
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gonzobrarian | Oct 7, 2009 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
6
Also by
3
Jäseniä
322
Suosituimmuussija
#73,505
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.4
Kirja-arvosteluja
5
ISBN:t
27

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