conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled Between Here and the Yellow Sea about Between, Yellow, Sea with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <div><BR>"the author&#8217;s powerful fiction harkens back to the golden age of short stories when O&#8217;Connor and the rest were working. He possesses an apparently unlimited imagination and the narrative skills to bring it to bear." &#151;William Gay, author of Twilight and The Lost Country<BR><BR>"the author is one of the most exciting young writers to come along in ages. If, like me, you read his first stories when they appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and were wondering whether or not he could sustain such excellence over the course of a book, wonder no more. This collection is first-rate, and the author is going to be wowing us for a long, long time to come." &#151;Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War and The Realm of Last Chances<BR><BR>"These stories are violent, sad, and beautiful. They hang around long after you've read them, like a long kiss, or a bruise." &#150; Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Ray in Reverse<BR><BR>"the author&#8217;s beautiful, lucid prose seems to flow like water or like music. He knows how to write in the marrow of his bones. This will be the first of many brilliant books. Hooray for talent, that rare and lovely gift of the gods." &#151;Ellen Gilchrist, author of Victory Over Japan and Nora Jane<BR><BR>"These are bold, tender, and intelligent stories. the author writes about people who don't take loss lightly; they fight it. Whether searching for a disappeared daughter or underground son or for their own abandoned illusions, the author's characters try to retrieve and recover their bets. That they rarely succeed doesn't matter. Interesting and beautiful things happen in Between Here and the Yellow Sea." &#151;Molly Giles, author of Iron Shoes<BR><BR>"The stories in Between Here and the Yellow Sea are clear of vision and death-defyingly beautiful. They ring like folded steel and reveal themselves in bold flashes. It's said that a well told story honors the living. The stories in the author's debut collection are alive &#150; veins apulse, hearts brimmed with desire, voices still singing." &#151;Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son and Emporium<BR><BR>"These stories are so exquisite they ache with longing." &#151;Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breach and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter<BR><BR>"the author is a born storyteller of the first order. His characters are so authentic you know if you prick them they will holler, and if you cut them they will bleed. He penetrates the heart of &#145;the old, weird America&#8217; with the insight of Dylan and the soul of Doc Boggs. Between Here and the Yellow Sea marks the debut of one of our most exciting new writers." mdash;Randall Kenan, author of Let the Dead Bury Their Dead</div>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: " mdash;Randall Kenan, author of Let the Dead Bury Their Dead</div>. He possesses an apparently unlimited imagination and the narrative skills to bring it to bear." &#151;William Gay, author of Twilight and The Lost Country<BR><BR>"the author is one of the most exciting young writers to come along in ages. If, like me, you read his first stories when they appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and were wondering whether or not he could sustain such excellence over the course of a book, wonder no more. This collection is first-rate, and the author is going to be wowing us for a long, long time to come." &#151;Steve Yarbrough, author of Prisoners of War and The Realm of Last Chances<BR><BR>"These stories are violent, sad, and beautiful. They hang around long after you've read them, like a long kiss, or a bruise." &#150; Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and Ray in Reverse<BR><BR>"the author&#8217;s beautiful, lucid prose seems to flow like water or like music. He knows how to write in the marrow of his bones. This will be the first of many brilliant books. Hooray for talent, that rare and lovely gift of the gods." &#151;Ellen Gilchrist, author of Victory Over Japan and Nora Jane<BR><BR>"These are bold, tender, and intelligent stories. the author writes about people who don't take loss lightly; they fight it. Whether searching for a disappeared daughter or underground son or for their own abandoned illusions, the author's characters try to retrieve and recover their bets. That they rarely succeed doesn't matter. Interesting and beautiful things happen in Between Here and the Yellow Sea." &#151;Molly Giles, author of Iron Shoes<BR><BR>"The stories in Between Here and the Yellow Sea are clear of vision and death-defyingly beautiful. They ring like folded steel and reveal themselves in bold flashes. It's said that a well told story honors the living. The stories in the author's debut collection are alive &#150; veins apulse, hearts brimmed with desire, voices still singing." &#151;Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son and Emporium<BR><BR>"These stories are so exquisite they ache with longing." &#151;Tom Franklin, author of Hell at the Breach and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter<BR><BR>"the author is a born storyteller of the first order. His characters are so authentic you know if you prick them they will holler, and if you cut them they will bleed. He penetrates the heart of &#145;the old, weird America&#8217; with the insight of Dylan and the soul of Doc Boggs. Between Here and the Yellow Sea marks the debut of one of our most exciting new writers.<div><BR>"the author&#8217;s powerful fiction harkens back to the golden age of short stories when O&#8217;Connor and the rest were working.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Between Here and the Yellow Sea
  He'd slept with her exactly three times, and at first he'd taken meeting her as an indication that a young man could tumble into effortless sexual encounters a great deal in Port Salvador. But now, by the time he received her letter, she remained the only woman he'd been with since moving here.
  The restaurant was a brick-and-wood diner set back from the road near the lip of a ravine. Tacked beside the door, a large plywood moon's flaking paint was the color of buttermilk. Some pines grew between the building and a small, oyster-shell parking lot, which held a few pickups and cars. Sam parked his Honda near the road and smoked a cigarette before going inside. The day was a mountain of light bearing down on the village, and the diner's roof blazed, two sheets of pure sun. To the west, sluggish barges slunk through shipping canals beyond the levee. In his head he rattled off his standard grievances: the heat, the moisture, the pollution, the phenomenally unhealthy, uneducated locals, the wealth of the churches. He tensed with the feeling of threat that had dogged him for the last year—a paranoia that he would be subject to imminent, irreparable harm if he stayed in Port Salvador. That fear had inspired Sam to attempt writing a novel, something he could try to publish that might provide credentials to spirit him out of here. The work kept him indoors, with his cigarettes and air-conditioning.
  A maroon Mercury pulled off the road and parked near the café's entrance. A man slightly older than Sam, wearing a gray suit, exited the car and walked into the diner. He didn't look like he lived in LaCroix. Sam pegged him as a lawyer. This part of the country was flush with them, venal meatheads who went to Tulane or LSU and dispersed along the coast to feed on tragedy and divorce. They all had commercials on the local stations and low billboards along even the most rural roads. He wondered if he was going to have to talk to a lawyer in the near future.
  He still didn't know how he felt. He couldn't help an initial sense of persecution at the idea that he might have a child with this girl, whom he truly didn't know, with whom he'd only shared certain bad habits. After their third encounter, she never called again, and he never felt a strong urge to call her. All in all, he had considered the affair a bit confusing, but exceptionally neat and undramatic. Now he'd decided to wait and see what the proper tests revealed before allowing his emotions to spin him around. It wasn't as if she'd written to inform him that she might have passed a lethal virus into him, a shadow in the blood.
  The cowbell above the screen door rang and the door cracked shut behind him. The dining area was shaped like a squared W with its middle prong replaced by a counter and kitchen. Hearty, fried smells thickened the air. Many of the tables were empty, but at a few, rough-skinned men in work clothes chewed their meals. The café thrived on stevedores, fishermen, and the refinery workers who passed through at lunchtime with dozens of orders to-go. An older woman with broad shoulders and a wide, crinkled neck called to Sam from behind the counter.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs? End with the sentence ' The third sketch depicted a young man with longish, light-colored hair, his eyes intense, his features familiar, gaunt, projecting.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Fall arrived. The leaves on the scant trees became a luxuriant, glossy collage of intense color. The streets became wet. Flyers were pulled down, walls were repainted. Eaton did not come back to class after Christmas break.
  She'd been sitting in front the television, next to an electric heater, eating a bowl of soup. She now kept her hair in a shower cap whenever she could. Her feet were soaking in Epsom salt and baking soda.
  The lead story on the news was about a bomb that went off in the city that day. The screen showed shaky footage of a department store, one she'd used to shop at, and its whole frontispiece had been obliterated, with small fires dancing in the wreckage of glass and brick. The video was fuzzy, people screaming, crying. She listened closely, already feeling a nearly imperceptible twinge at the base of her neck. She set her spoon in the bowl, and set the bowl down. She put on her glasses.
  The reporter's face gave way to three portraits, black and white drawings of men whom the police were trying to identify. The sketches were crude in some ways, but she still gasped in recognition. The third sketch depicted a young man with longish, light-colored hair, his eyes intense, his features familiar, gaunt, projecting.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last two paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Just what had he thought it would be, and had he ever even seen it clearly in his mind? Eventually, was it even worthwhile? Hard to say now. The more he ponders the piece, the more significant its errors become. He asks himself what one has to do to make such work worthwhile. This is a new question.
  He walks down the bluff, canvas rucksack hoisted, turning down the same road he arrived on, and dragonflies fill the air between clawlike branches, knobby and brittle, the path matted with soggy leaves. Shadows pass over his face, a boy, the two new pink gouges and crooked nose.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Shadows pass over his face, a boy, the two new pink gouges and crooked nose. The more he ponders the piece, the more significant its errors become. He asks himself what one has to do to make such work worthwhile. This is a new question.
  He walks down the bluff, canvas rucksack hoisted, turning down the same road he arrived on, and dragonflies fill the air between clawlike branches, knobby and brittle, the path matted with soggy leaves.Just what had he thought it would be, and had he ever even seen it clearly in his mind? Eventually, was it even worthwhile? Hard to say now.