Martin Stillwater is a novelist with a wife and children he adores -- and an imagination he can't control. One rainy afternoon, a stranger breaks into Martin's house and accuses him of stealing his family, his name, and his life. Martin has no choice but to take his family and flee, even as he questions his own sanity. But wherever they go, the stranger is right behind them.
Added by: arcadius | Karma: 2802.10 | Fiction literature | 13 March 2011
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The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is a piece of short fiction by Mark Twain. Hadleyburg enjoys the reputation of being an “incorruptible” town known for its responsible, honest people that are trained to avoid temptation. However, at some point the people of Hadleyburg manage to offend a passing stranger, and he vows to get his revenge by corrupting the town.The stranger's plan centers around a sack of gold (worth around $40,000) he drops off in Hadleyburg at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Richards, to be given to a man in the town who purportedly gave him some life-changing advice (and 20 dollars in a time of need) long ago.
Eric Downer and his father John Downer are returning home, after John's annual binge in town, to the 150,000 acres of land they lease at Lake Jane. Three years of drought have dried the lake, killed all the vegetation and most of the sheep. Even from a distance the homestead looks frighteningly desolate. The dog at the gate is near death, the "chooks" are all dead and outside lies the body–not of Brandt the overseer who had stayed behind, but of a stranger. Bony becomes more and more unhappy as he investigates the case and the scant clues all point in a direction which will cause those he has grown to admire much unhappiness.
Added by: math man | Karma: 198.35 | Audiobooks | 1 March 2011
2
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Here's a Mark Twain story that's very unlike those he became famous for, but when I read it back in Catholic high school, it left a deep impression. It concerns the deeply religious residents of a small village in Austria during the late sixteenth century, and what happened to several of them when a strange man began to visit their insulated homeland. There's little of Twain's humor here; this is a horror story, a parable. . . and a warning. (Summary by Ted Delorme)
After fleeing her dangerous life with a baby in tow, Maggie Stanley is rescued from the snowy Idaho night by a handsome but emotionally wounded stranger, and together they will rediscover the meaning of trust and love.
