About this item
Highlights
- In sixteen apparently simple stories, John Young's memorable characters ask (or refuse to ask) what shapes us.
- Author(s): John Young
- 198 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Short Stories (single author)
Description
About the Book
In sixteen stories, John Young's memorable characters ask or avoid asking what shapes us. Talent? Impulse? Money? Family? Most are set in small-town Indiana, a few in New England. All are sensitive, careful, and real.
Book Synopsis
In sixteen apparently simple stories, John Young's memorable characters ask (or refuse to ask) what shapes us. Education? Talent? Impulse? Family? Money? Need for approval? Most of the stories are set in small-town Indiana, with a handful coming from New England villages. All are sensitively written, careful, and real.
The impulse to cheat (embellish) shows up early in the collection, as an antique dealer teaches himself to craft high-quality fakes. It reaches a fever pitch and crashes in the next tale, when an ambitious minister in an affluent community pays more attention to his neighbor's wife and pumpkins than to the living he's inherited. Young's protagonists range from observant nine-year-olds to hyper-competitive teens, from working class dreamers (and drinkers) to privileged executives defending the compromises they've made. A few face public humiliation; a few others die. In two of the strongest stories, young women face painful life-and-death decisions, and the conclusions are uncertain. In most, there's an ethical dilemma, skillfully and subtly plotted so that we readers come away energized, appreciating "the oxymorons of life."
Review Quotes
An elegant, wry, wise, witty collection that deserves a place among the best work being produced today. Young is a writer who knows his craft and deserves the attention of a wide audience.
--Patricia Averbach, author of Resurrecting Rain
What sets these exquisitely crafted stories apart is John Young's keen sense of place and his ability to make you feel you are there. Not just physical places, but states of mind too.
-Don Tassone, author of Francesca
Ordinary people face complex moral, romantic or financial decisions: a journalist's mother doesn't see his talent; a wife decides to have a baby with her terminally-ill husband. Reading these tales, memories flood: of mistakes made; crushes that almost became romances; knotty family dynamics.
--Cynthia Smith, Journalist, Wyoming News
As one story progresses to the next, Young's deceptively simple voice evolves, and the stories deepen shockingly - as if fate has caught us, and Young himself, in the best hopes of literature.
--Frederick Dillen, author of the novels, Hero, Fool, and Beauty
I said Let me read a few minutes of these stories before I start dinner. At midnight I was still crying, laughing, and fond of Young's ability to take me with him. Unique turns of phrase add as much impact as his uncanny understanding of who we are.
--Connie Shakalis. Columnist, The Bloomington Herald-Times
His rural Midwest focuses on fathers expecting their dreams to be reincarnated through sons; mothers who push those sons; "popular" girls; ... and boys whose personalities vary widely. It's a masculine culture, old school style, which Young neither idealizes nor romanticizes.
--Dan Brown, editor of Aeqai, April 24, 2021.