Little America |
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| Author:
| Simmons, Diane |
| Series title: | Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8142-5178-2 |
| Publication Date: | May 2011 |
| Publisher: | Ohio State University Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $19.95 |
Book Description:
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Little America is for anyone who has ever considered just getting in the car and driving away. Here the ribbon of Western road is a metaphor for the heart's strange longings, providing hard, sometimes hilarious, lessons on the improbability of escape, the possibility of salvation, and the elusiveness of self-knowledge.
In "Yukon River," young lovers with a seedy past risk everything to be purified in the Alaska outback; they encounter instead...
More Description Little America is for anyone who has ever considered just getting in the car and driving away. Here the ribbon of Western road is a metaphor for the heart's strange longings, providing hard, sometimes hilarious, lessons on the improbability of escape, the possibility of salvation, and the elusiveness of self-knowledge.
In "Yukon River," young lovers with a seedy past risk everything to be purified in the Alaska outback; they encounter instead the ruthless opportunism and alluring corruption of oil boom Fairbanks. In "Suitcase," a modern Heart of Darkness, the road meanders from California down through impoverished Mexico and then sinks into a deadly Guatemalan jungle where the idealism of an earlier era gently rots. "Roll" starts in a truck on a cliff top in Idaho, one wheel off the edge. "Little America" travels with grifters on the lam who choke up at the sight of an Oregon wheat field at sunrise; later, in Wyoming, they are made solemn by the grandeur of the world's biggest truck stop and pause to ponder: Why would anyone willingly stay in one place?
With deadpan humor, perfect pitch voice, and keen love of place, Simmons's stories illuminate the abiding American desire to "light out"--if not necessarily for something better, at least for something new.