About this item
Highlights
- The stories in John Warner's Tough Day for the Army move from hilarious and biting to unsettling and sad -- sometimes within the span of a few pages.
- About the Author: John Warner is the author of The Funny Man as well as three other books.
- 168 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
Description
Book Synopsis
The stories in John Warner's Tough Day for the Army move from hilarious and biting to unsettling and sad -- sometimes within the span of a few pages. Mining the absurdities, confusions, and hypocrisies of our contemporary times, these stories raise questions such as: What would happen if Jesus Christ played minor league hockey before he became the Son of God ("Second Careers")? What would you do if a group of poets in search of inspiration appeared on your farm ("Poet Farmers")?
Many of the stories upend expectations of the act of storytelling, as in "Corrections and Clarifications," written entirely in the form of newspaper corrections, or "Return-to-Sensibility Problems after Penetrating Captive Bolt Stunning of Cattle in Commercial Beef Slaughter Plant #5867: Confidential Report," which begins as a straightforward account of slaughterhouse operations but quickly devolves into something wholly surprising and different. Warner's relentlessly inventive stories are reminiscent of the works of Donald Barthelme, George Saunders, and Amy Hempel. With comic and tender rambunctiousness, his satirical voice parries and thrusts its way through each narrative, combining a strong wit with a soft heart.Review Quotes
"Mr. Warner follows the path of authors like Chris Buckley and Randall Silvis, but he is darker than the former and funnier than the latter.... [Warner is] among the most perceptive and edgy chroniclers of an increasingly coarse American culture." -New York Journal of Books
"Mr. Warner follows the path of authors like Chris Buckley and Randall Silvis, but he is darker than the former and funnier than the latter. . . . [Warner is] among the most perceptive and edgy chroniclers of an increasingly coarse American culture."--New York Journal of Books
About the Author
John Warner is the author of The Funny Man as well as three other books. His short fiction has appeared, among other places, in Ninth Letter, McSweeney's, Zoetrope All-Story Extra, and Salon. He is a weekly columnist for the Printers Row, the literary supplement for the Chicago Tribune.