Here are Four unforgettable stories by the author of Life of Pi. In the exquisite title novella, a very young man dying of AIDS joins his friend in fashioning a story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, set against the yearly march of the twentieth century whose horrors and miracles their story echoes. In "The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American composer John Morton," a Canadian university student visits Washington, D.C., and experiences the Vietnam War and its aftermath through an intense musical encounter. In "Manners of Dying," variations of a warden's letter to the mother of a man he has just executed reveal how each life is contained in its end. The final story, "The Vita AEterna Mirror Company: Mirrors to Last till Kingdom Come," is about a young man who discovers an antique mirror-making machine that runs on memories and fashions a unique reflection of his relationship with his grandmother. Written earlier in Martel's career, these tales are as moving as they are thought-provoking, as inventive in form as they are timeless in content. They display the startling mix of dazzle and depth that have made Yann Martel an international phenomenon. Book jacket. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Pathos is leavened with inventiveness and humor in this collection of a novella and three short stories first published in a slightly different version in Canada in 1993, nearly 10 years before Martel's Booker-winning Life of Pi. The minor key is established in the title novella, a graceful, multilayered story of a young man dying of AIDS, told through the refracting lens of the history of the 20th century. Infected by a blood transfusion, Paul receives the diagnosis during his freshman year of college. The narrator, Paul's student mentor, devises a plan to keep Paul engaged in life they will invent the story of the Roccamatio family of Helsinki, which will have 100 chapters, each thematically linked to an event of the 20th century. The connection between the history, the stories and Paul's condition is subtle and always shifting, as fluid and elusive as life itself. The experience of death is delicately probed in the next two stories as well: in one, a Canadian student's life is changed when he hears the Rankin Concerto, written in honor of a Vietnam veteran; in the other, a prison warden reports to a mother on her son's last moments before he is executed. The book closes with a surreal fable in which mirrors are made from memories. These are exemplary works of apprenticeship, slight yet richly satisfying. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Having delivered a nail-biting narrative with Life of Pi, Martel chooses not to repeat himself, here offering four meditative stories that test the limits of the form. In the longest, the narrator and a friend slowly perishing of AIDS swap stories, centered on the imaginary Roccamatios of Helsinki, that reflect events of the 20th century. We don't get their stories, however, just the events that inspire them, which creates an appropriate sense of being shut out (just as the narrator can't really enter his friend's pain), though it can be a little distancing. In "Manners of Dying," variations of the same letter written by a prison warden to a woman whose son has just been executed reveal the horror of capital punishment. In the especially intriguing "The Vita Aeterna Mirror Company," an old woman reiterates memories (in a narrow column) to her newly alert grandson (whose thoughts fill the page). Startlingly, she even shows him a machine that makes mirrors out of memories. Elusive and thought-provoking, though sure to confound anyone who reads for plot, this collection is recommended for public and academic libraries. Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

This collection of two long and two short stories by the author of the avidly read and Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi (2002) was published a decade ago in Martel's native Canada and now is being released in the U.S. Its American appearance after all these years is due to the success of Pi, of course, but its postponement had nothing to do with a lack of artistry. These are stunning stories; they are drawn, like Pi, from the far reaches--not stretches--of the author's inventiveness. The title story is a masterpiece by any standard; the destructiveness of AIDS has rarely been rendered so universally as Martel parallels a long set of political horrors that have occurred over the twentieth century with the private ones endured over the course of a young man's fatal illness. The next story (bearing a title much too long to cite here) leaves the reader wondering what writer has understood as well as Martel the union of physical and emotional sensations that listening to beautiful music can induce. The last two stories--both much shorter--engage in elements of magic realism; in the first one, the author explores a range of personal reactions to death, and in the second, he suggests that much of what we see in ourselves is the construct of our memories. The collection is a multidimensional meditation on being and mortality and answering to a higher spirit--cerebral exercises, no question, but the sheer luminosity of Martel's prose style opens these stories' relevance and allure to a wide audience. BradHooper. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Yann Martel is the author of the Man Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi. When he stays put, he lives in Montreal Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Author's Note	vii
The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios	1
The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton	83
Manners of Dying	131
The Vita Aeterna Mirror Company: Mirrors to Last till Kingdom Come	167

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