The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench: Stories and Essays

Richard McKenna is a name rarely recognized by readers. However, he has written one very famous novel that was turned into an equally famous movie; The Sand Pebbles.Besides this novel this work contains his only other easily available work. This work deserves close study since it shows him to be a remarkable story teller and a maritime author in the class of Conrad, Hemingway, and Patrick O'Brien.McKenna's most remarkable skill is his evenhanded approach to both sympathetic and unsympatehtic characters. He writes stories that deal with human interaction, but never has to resort to the use of villains to add tension to the story.McKenna's back ground as a sailor and an author who did not put pen to paper until late in live must have contributed to this remarkable gift.