How long is it?
320 pages in the Grove Paperback 2001 paperback edition.
Fiction · Short Stories · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
CanonicalPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1993Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 43 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 320 pagesGrove Paperback · 2001
- Reading time
- 6 h 30 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 3 / 5
About 6 h 30 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 13 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Vietnamese refugees in Louisiana build new lives while memories of war, family obligations and old political loyalties follow them from Vietnam. A father tries to interest his American-born son in a childhood game; a woman remembers her grandfather’s beliefs about women and ancestor worship. Across these stories, the distance between generations complicates the work of preserving a past their American lives cannot fully accommodate.
Reader notes
Distinct first-person voices carry the collection, and its lyrical storytelling allows folklore and ghosts into ordinary domestic life. The stories approach the war through its continuing presence in memory and relationships, alongside frank sexual material.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Atmospheric · Descriptive · Lyrical
- Tone
- Intimate · Melancholic · Reflective · Wistful
- Structure
- Linked collection
- Collection
- Thematic
- Driven by
- Character · Relationships · Voice
- Point of view
- First person · Multiple viewpoints
- Setting
- Louisiana, United States · Vietnam · Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Belonging
- Family
- Grief
- Identity
- Memory
- Migration and displacement
Content notes
- Violence
- Mild
- Sexual content
- Strong
- Swearing
- None
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- Mild
Standing and awards
Canonical
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1993
- PEN/Faulkner Award shortlist, 1993
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Grove Paperback · 2001 · Paperback. ISBN 9780802137982.
How long does it take to read A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain?
About 6 hours 30 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 320-page Grove Paperback edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Robert Olen Butler
Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction writer whose prose centers voice, memory, and intimate forms of dislocation. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain moves among Vietnamese immigrants in Louisiana, using separate character-driven stories rather than a single plot. Cultural difference appears through family ties, private longings, and daily choices, with lyrical description carrying the tensions between a remembered homeland and an American life taking shape. Butler also writes directly about craft in From Where You Dream. His own working method was notably practical: he composed his first four published novels by hand on legal pads while commuting by train to Manhattan.
If you liked this
The Thing Around Your Neck
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Short Stories · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Grove Paperback
- Publication year
- 2001
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 320
- ISBN
- 9780802137982
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1992
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Short Stories · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Contemporary literary
- Editions
- 15
- Languages
- 4 (English, French, Japanese, Unspecified)