Things to do when you're goth in the country / Chavisa Woods.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York ; Oakland : Seven Stories Press, 2017Description: 221 pages ; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781609807450
- 1609807456
- Short stories. Selections
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | Woods, Chavisa | Available | 33111008767713 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Nominated for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction
"Darkly funny and brilliantly human, urgently fantastical and implacably realistic. This is one of the best short story collections I've read in years. It should be required reading for anyone who's trying to understand America in 2017." -Paul La Farge, author of The Night Ocean
The eight stories in Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country paint a vivid image of people living on the fringes in America, people who don't do what you might expect them to. Not stories of triumph over adversity, but something completely other.
Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods's characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong-often the places where they were born. In "Zombie," a coming-of-age story like no other, two young girls find friendship with a mysterious woman in the local cemetery. "Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street" describes a lesbian couple trying to repair their relationship by dropping acid at a Mensa party. In "A New Mohawk," a man in romantic pursuit of a female political activist becomes inadvertently much more familiar with the Palestine/Israel conflict than anyone would have thought possible. And in the title story, Woods brings us into the mind of a queer goth teenager who faces ostracism from her small-town evangelical church.
In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.
"Capturing the lyricism of lives without a future in southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and New York City, Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country introduces us to Chavisa Woods's people. They are smart and poor, lost and hoping not to be found, and of high hopes but few if any expectations--inhabitants, mostly young, of a hidden country without a name that exists within America. The eight stories in things to Do When You're Goth in the Country bring the underbelly of America into vivid focus. The strange and unique characters in this collection include a "zombie" who secretly resides in a local cemetery; a queer teen goth who is facing ostracism from her small-town, evangelical church; a Brooklyn artist who learns more about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict than he ever wanted to; and the UFOs that trouble a group of friends in the rural Midwest. And the big sis who leaves New York City once a year to go home to see her "little little" and "big little" brothers and bear witness to the injuries from stripping copper wire from abandoned houses, and the smell of the meth lab in the woods nearby, and the sounds of the police scanner radio, and the early deaths that happen for a whole host of reasons"-- Provided by publisher.