Steven Sherrill

Broschiertes Buch

Joy, Pa

Beschreibung

A darkly insightful evocation of the post-industrial era, Joy, PA tells the story of a family teetering on the precipice of ruin. The Augenbaughs live in a broken and decaying town where the last vestiges of country-club wealth run up against the terrible realities of working-class poverty. Abigail, a fervent believer in the apocalyptic teachings of a radio preacher, is desperate to save her son from Judgment Day as she readies herself for the Rapture-due to arrive in just a few days. Her husband, Burns, has moved to the basement to live out his days in a medicated stupor, unable to cope with memories of his service in Iraq. Caught between the suffering of his mother and father, ten-year-old Willie fights the inherited demons that have savaged his parents' tenuous grasp on reality. The somber drama surrounding the Augenbaughs plays out with a piercing and commanding lyrical beauty. Both transfixing and disconcerting, Steven Sherrill's empathetic portrait of alienation elicits hope and sympathy amidst shattered but no-less-dignified lives.

Autor

Steven Sherrill is not, absolutely not, a traditional academic, nor a scholar. But Steven Sherrill has been making trouble with words since eighth grade, when he was suspended from school for two weeks for a story he wrote. He dropped out of school in the tenth grade, ricocheted around the southern United States for years, eventually earning a welding diploma from a community college, which led circuitously to an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and as of recently, professor emeritus of English and integrative arts at Penn State University, with five novels, a book of poems, and a memoir in the world. His first novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, is translated into eight languages and was released as an audio book. His second novel, Visits from the Drowned Girl, published by Random House (and nominated by them for the Pulitzer Prize) in the United States and Canongate, United Kingdom, was released in June of 2004. The Locktender's House, novel number three, was released by Random House in Spring 2008. In November 2010, CW Books released the poetry collection, Ersatz Anatomy. Louisiana State University Press: Yellow Shoe Fiction Series released the novel JOY, PA, in March 2015. The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time was published in the fall of 2016 and lauded by Alan Gurganus in The New York Times Book Review. Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjos, the memoir, is a book about twenty-one days and sixty years. A motorcycle ride down the spine of Appalachia, with a little banjo and big myth for company, to play and sing at the graves of dead banjo heroes. It's about making a life about making work.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: LSU Press
• Seitenzahl: 248
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Februar 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 355g
• ISBN-13: 9780807159569
• ISBN-10: 0807159565
• Artikelnr.: 42850470