First published 1997
This twelfth annual collection brings together nineteen tales that capture the complexity of Southern experience. A woman grapples with the impossible challenge of loving someone from another world entirely. A young Southerner finds himself lost in Manhattan's unforgiving landscape, far from familiar ground. These stories move between comedy and heartbreak, examining the desires that drive us and the connections that sustain us. The contributors include Gene Able, Dwight Allen, Edward Allen, Janice Daugharty, Ellen Douglas, Pam Durban, Charles East, Rhian Margaret Ellis, Tim Gautreaux, Elizabeth Gilbert, Lucy Hochman, Beauvais McCaddon, Dale Ray Phillips, Patricia Elam Ruff, Lee Smith, Judy Troy, Marc Vassallo, and Brad Vice. Editor Robert Olen Butler frames the collection with his perspective on fiction as the art form that captures human yearning in all its forms.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Manhattan, South
Period: 1997
ebook · Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill