The Lifeguard - by Mary Morris (Paperback)

About the Book

Combining her consummate craft as a storyteller with her gift for dramatic travel writing, Morris presents a powerful collection of ten short stories.

Book Synopsis

The Lifeguard is a powerful collection of ten short stories that shows Mary Morris's great sensitivity to men and women at moments of turbulence, uncertainty, and crisis.

Morris's short story collection combines her consummate craft as a storyteller with her gift for dramatic travel writing. In the title story, a teenage lifeguard sees his mystique among the girls on the beach dissolve in a panicked moment when he cannot save a child. In "The Glass-Bottom Boat," a mother on her first trip abroad learns about trust from a solicitous stranger.

"A superb collection . . . A magnificent writer." --The Washington Post Book World

Review Quotes

"Mary Morris seems to have a microscope trained on the souls and hearts of mankind . . . A superb collection . . . A magnificent writer." --The Washington Post Book World

"Dizzy with self-realization, Morris's characters venture out beyond the beach resorts to more compelling but often perilous territories." --The Chicago Tribune

"These knowing, sometimes dark tales are about people struggling to connect with each other in spite of their own ambivalence." --Glamour

"Mary Morris's compassion is on par with her sense of humor, a rare combination." --Betsy Willeford, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)

"The stories are quite disarmingly complex, while keeping up a surface appearance of clarity and straightforwardness . . . It's a fine book." --Charles Baxter

"Ten subtle, impressionistic stories that linger and expand in the memory." --Mademoiselle

"As a storyteller, Morris shines. Reading her best stories is like sinking into a good photograph. She packs them with tiny details, but never allows the particulars to interfere with the vision and balance of the whole." --Julia Corbin, St. Petersburg Times

"A poised and articulate collection." --Publishers Weekly

"Exquisitely revealing moments...clearly Morris hasn't lost her touch as a story writer." --Kirkus Reviews

"Morris's ability to reincarnate her travel stories into fiction make for a well-rounded, fully formed body of work. It is also a pleasure to come upon a contemporary author who writes fiction and nonfiction equally well." --Kristin Rose, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"What really unifies these stories is Morris's spartan approach to descriptive detail and her spare language. Instead of spoon-feeding her readers, Morris leaves much for them to infer." --Marie Elsie St. Leger, Time Out New York

About the Author

Mary Morris is a novelist, short-story writer, and author of travel literature. Her many books include the novels Crossroads, The Waiting Room, and The Night Sky. She wrote the travel memoirs Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone and Wall to Wall: From Beijing to Berlin by Rail. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Creative Artists Public Service Awards. She lives in Brooklyn.