Last Call Stories |
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| Author:
| Cook, K. L. |
| Series title: | The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-1-4962-0940-5 |
| Publication Date: | Jul 2022 |
| Publisher: | University of Nebraska Press
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| Book Format: | Ebook |
| List Price: | USD $19.95 |
Book Description:
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K. L. Cook's debut collection of linked stories spans three generations in the life of one West Texas family. Events both tender and tragic lead to a strange and lovely vision of a world stitched together in tenuous ways as the characters struggle to make sense of their lives amid the shifting boundaries of marriage, family, class, and culture.
A series of unusual incidents--a daughter's elopement, a sobering holiday trip, a vicious attack by the family dog, a lightning...
More Description
K. L. Cook's debut collection of linked stories spans three generations in the life of one West Texas family. Events both tender and tragic lead to a strange and lovely vision of a world stitched together in tenuous ways as the characters struggle to make sense of their lives amid the shifting boundaries of marriage, family, class, and culture.
A series of unusual incidents--a daughter's elopement, a sobering holiday trip, a vicious attack by the family dog, a lightning strike--provokes a mother of five to abandon her children. An oil rigger, inspired by sun-induced hallucinations, rescues his estranged wife, who doesn't appreciate his chivalry. In the wake of his father's and brother's deaths, a teenage boy finds a precarious solace working with his mother at a country-western bar. A cosmetics salesman schemes to buy Costa Rica and flirts dangerously with mobsters in Las Vegas. A woman fleeing her fourth marriage arrives at a complicated understanding of love and responsibility.
Railroad worker and conman, grieving son and battered wife--these characters explore the limits of family fragility and resilience. Their stories--suggesting unlikely connections between comedy and pathos, cruelty and generosity--promise a hard-won dignity and hope.