First published 2001
In western Kentucky, ordinary people navigate the shifting currents of modern American life. A truck driver recovers from an accident while his marriage unravels. Women discover new possibilities as traditional roles crack open. Families grapple with changing values as R-rated movies and video games enter their world. Bobbie Ann Mason writes about her native Kentucky people with precision and care, capturing moments when the Old South meets new realities. Her characters face divorce, unemployment, and cultural upheaval, yet they persist in forging meaningful lives. These sixteen stories reveal how feminism, popular culture, and economic change reshape small-town existence. Mason focuses her lens on a specific place and time, but finds universal truths about resilience and adaptation. The collection won the PEN/Hemingway Award and earned praise from Raymond Carver, who predicted these stories would endure. Through her characters' struggles with identity and belonging, Mason illuminates the growing pains of an entire region in transition.
Genres: fiction, family-life, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: Kentucky, Western Kentucky
Period: 20th Century, 21st Century
256 pages · Paperback · Random House Publishing Group