Everyone Here Has a Gun: Stories (Grace Paley Prize in Short

Everyone Here Has a Gun: Stories (Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction)

In a tightrope act of darkness and humor, fantasy and reality, the twelve stories in this award-winning collection describe characters searching for comfort and stability in a world that is ultimately too vast, violent, and incomprehensible. As they revert to what seems most simple and familiarâ€•public transportation, television, museums, fairy talesâ€•they discover only murder, displacement, fragmentation, and obsession.

In "The Running Legs and Other Stories," Mary Beth attempts to recall a traumatic experience from her childhood, filtering it through children's stories told by her "wicked" stepmother. In "Lincoln's Face, A Resurrection," an African American make-up artist struggles with concepts of history as she transforms a former lover into Abraham Lincoln. The young narrator in "Under the World" grieves for his parents by losing himself in a worldwide subway system. And in the title story, the speaker describes a small room where everyone armed with a single gun waits with dread and anticipation for the inevitable first shot.

Anton Chekhov famously noted that if a story introduces a gun in the first act, that gun must go off by the third. Yet while weapons are often present in Southworth's stories, they are rarely fired, existing instead as a constant reminder of the power people can have over each other and the violent potential of narrative itself.
Country USA
Brand University of Massachusetts Press
Manufacturer University of Massachusetts Press
Binding Hardcover
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781625340535
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University of Massachusetts Press
Manufacturer	University of Massachusetts Press
Binding	Hardcover
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781625340535
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Everyone Here Has a Gun: Stories (Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction)

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