The present collection brings together two novellas and two stories from what one writer called his “renaissance” as a fiction writer.
O Brother!, described as “extraordinarily direct and true,” is about the life
of a con-artist infatuated with his mother, with sex and charm, and
inhabiting a world of pure fantasy which reality always returns to
destroy. Olga and Snow tells of a Russian waif who is bedded by a
series of extraordinary figures from the Soviet Union in the 1930s
and 1940s, including a commissar for culture and a Nobel Prize
dissident poet with a more than passing resemblance to Joseph
Brodsky. La Françoise is here published for the first time in English.
The author describes it as a tribute to his friend Georges Simenon.
Along the River Plate is a tale of ambiguity and deception set in
Peronist Argentina.
“It is a singular book overall,”writes one critic, “and ‘O Brother!’ is extraordinarily direct and true.”
About the Author
 After a notable early career as a novelist and editor, KEITH BOTSFORD describes himself as having been "sidetracked" into journalism (The Sunday Times, The Independent, La Stampa), working variously as sportswriter, food columnist and US correspondent. Half Italian and half American, born in Brussels, educated in England, he returned to writing fiction in 1989 and now lives in Boston where he is a professor of journalism, history and international relations, and edits, with Saul Bellow, The Republic of Letters.
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The Critics Praise:
“Every one of his leading figures is vivid and has an important story to tell or enact. I stayed close to this book and read it with a sense of his freedom and the wonderful variety of his characters.”
MARK HARRIS
Botsford “likes the people, he is amused by them, he is even touched, and he recites tales which would easily be expanded to novels if he so chose. I felt I was sitting across the campfire from him and getting all the entertainment I wanted.”
HERBERT GOLD
“This collection tastes like good, aged whiskey.”
ROGER SHATTUCK
“…expertly crafted by an experienced storyteller… Keith Botsford deserves a wider audience.”
THE TLS, LONDON
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