Word: tales
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...which makes the Pete Rose story more than a gossipy tale about the downfall of an idol. Whether or not he bet on baseball, the last thing America's growing legion of gamblers needs is an example of an admitted heavy bettor blithely denying he has done anything wrong and actually commanding the sympathy of people who continue to worship him. The lure of excessive gambling is too great, even without an exemplar of Rose's stature. Painful as it may be for the millions who admired him as a ballplayer, he should be punished as severely as an objective...
...fecund London year that has already brought new efforts from half-a-dozen top dramatists. Structurally, Sherman's show is two one-acts, but they are linked by one of the cleverest devices in memory. The first piece, A Table for a King, is an exquisitely painful tale of betrayals involving a pathetically dignified Mississippi matron, a sweetly awkward American college boy recovering from a thwarted homosexual infatuation, a casually seductive waiter and the sly, implacable owner of a Greek-island hotel where all the characters are living...
Every boat person who washes up in Hong Kong in search of asylum no doubt has a compelling tale to tell, but the colony no longer listens sympathetically. With a population of some 6 million people squeezed into only 413 sq. mi., Hong Kong finds itself burdened by the presence of more than 44,400 asylum seekers -- and more boat people are pouring in despite the colony's year-old attempt to close its doors. About 20,000 have arrived so far this year. "The problem is that it is an unending problem," explains Fazlul Karim, head of the local...
...leaders educated in white universities and a written constitution recognized by the U.S. But they stood in the way of white expansion, so they were driven from their homes and herded along what came to be called the Trail of Tears to the Oklahoma territory. There, Humphrey's tale has it, the survivors were forced once more to migrate. The weight of such history would seem almost too oppressive for fiction to handle. But Humphrey skillfully balances the misery with the detachment of ancient family legend. The tale descends from a boy named Amos Ferguson, blue-eyed, a doctor...
...anthologies from high school or college English classes; the assigned texts are there to be studied, not enjoyed. But of course many collections can be read with pleasure, as this one engagingly demonstrates. William Trevor, the distinguished Irish novelist and short story writer, understands his compatriots' love of tale telling, the anecdotal impulse that flourishes among people who savor the spoken word. In his brief, informative introduction, he notes, "English fiction writers tend to state that their short stories are leavings from their novels. In Ireland I have heard it put the other way around...