Elegy on Kinderklavier

Elegy on Kinderklavier
Author: Arna Bontemps Hemenway
Publisher: Sarabande Books
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936747855

“[An] impressive debut short story collection . . . These haunting stories deserve a wide audience” (Library Journal, starred review). Winner of the 2015 PEN/Hemingway Award The stories in Elegy on Kinderklavier explore the profound loss and intricate effects of war on lives that have been suddenly misaligned. A diplomat navigates a hostile political climate and an arranged marriage in an Israeli settlement on a newly discovered planet; a small town in Kansas shuns the army recruiter who signed up its boys as troops are deployed to Iraq, falling in helicopters and on grenades; a family dissolves around mental illness and a child’s body overtaken by cancer. The moment a soldier steps on an explosive device is painfully reproduced, nanosecond by nanosecond. Arna Bontemps Hemenway’s stories feel pulled out of time and place, and the suffering of his characters seem at once otherworldly and stunningly familiar. Elegy on Kinderklavier is a disquieting exploration of what it is to lose and be lost. “Story after story, this collection surprised me and set my mind ablaze.” —Alan Heathcock, author of Volt “Arna Hemenway writes a fiction whose satisfactions are not merely narrative but musical, and it is a pleasure to listen to his stories as they rise into song.” —Kevin Brockmeier, author of A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip “Death is an imminent, lurking presence in this debut collection of seven stories, which explore the confluence of fate and circumstance that places men in situations of anguish and despair.” —Publishers Weekly

The Best American Short Stories 2015

The Best American Short Stories 2015
Author: T. Coraghessan Boyle
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 054793940X

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

The Best American Short Stories 2012

The Best American Short Stories 2012
Author: Tom Perrotta
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2012
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547242107

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

Cabin, Clearing, Forest

Cabin, Clearing, Forest
Author: Zach Falcon
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2015-10-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1602232768

“People break my heart. Every single one of them does.” In settings that range from rural fishing communities to the urban capital, the stories of Cabin, Clearing, Forest are a lyrical road map to the human landscape of contemporary Alaska. In “Blue Ticket,” a stranger finds solace in a Juneau homeless encampment. Old friends argue over the pleasures and perils of small-town life in “A Beginner’s Guide to Leaving Your Hometown,” and in “Every Island Longs for the Continent,” a young family falls apart after moving to Kodiak. In these thirteen stories, Zach Falcon explores the burdens of familiarity and the pains of estrangement through characters struggling with their place in the world.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012
Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2012
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547595964

A selection of the best writing, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and blogs, published during 2011. Edited by Dave Eggers.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
Author: Kim Fu
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0544098269

A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest. Their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. On an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home. Five girls-- Nita, Kayla, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan-- survive the trip, and as the following years bring successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks, we see the many ways a tragedy can alter the lives it touches.

Beasts & Children

Beasts & Children
Author: Amy Parker
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2016-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0544370163

Linked stories exploring the dark heart of the American family: “Electrifying, daring . . . sure to appeal to fans of Karen Russell and Lorrie Moore ” (Booklist, starred review). A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of the Year The Bowmans are declining Texas gentry, heirs to an airline fortune, surrounded by a patriarch’s stuffed trophies and lost dreams. They will each be haunted by the past as they strive to escape its force. The Fosters are diplomats’ kids who might as well be orphans. Jill and Maizie grow up privileged amid poverty, powerless to change the lives of those around them and uncertain whether they have the ability to change their own. The Guzmans have moved between Colombia and the United States, each generation seeking opportunity for the next, only to find that the American dream can be as crushing as it is elusive. From the tense territory of a sagging, grand porch in Texas to a gated community in Thailand to a lonely apartment in nondescript suburbia, these wry, dark stories unwind the lives of three families as they navigate the ever-shifting landscapes of the American middle class. “No one is safe, Parker reminds us, especially within the family circle—but one’s chosen family can also offer salvation. . . . The stories, like the mounted heads in the Bowmans’ trophy room, rivet the gaze, demand that readers recognize themselves in those glassy eyes—and then become disconcertingly alive.” —The New York Times Book Review

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
Author: Kim Fu
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0544227328

“A sensitive, evocative exploration of how the past threads itself through our lives, reemerging in unexpected ways.”—Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author At Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, campers are promised adventures in the woods, songs by the fire, and lifelong friends. Bursting with excitement and nervous energy, five girls set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore follows Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan beyond this fateful trip, showing us the lives of the haunted and complex women these girls become. From award-winning novelist Kim Fu comes a stunning portrait of girlhood, the nuances of survival, and the pasts we can’t escape. “[Fu] is a propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose to move seamlessly through time . . . In the one-way glass of the novel, we watch the girls of Forevermore from a series of angles, in all their private anguishes. We lean closer, unable to turn away.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fu precisely renders the banal humiliations of childhood, the chilling steps humans take to survive, and the way time warps memory.”—Publishers Weekly “An unblinking view of the social and emotional survival of the fittest that all too often marks the female coming of age.”—Toronto Star “These portraits of sisterhood, motherhood, daughterhood, wifehood, girlfriendhood, independent womanhood, and other female-identified-hoods sing and groan and scream with complexity and nuance, and they make me want to read her next ten books.”—The Stranger