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If I had two wings : stories / Randall Kenan.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Edition: First editionDescription: 211 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781324005469
  • 1324005467
Uniform titles:
  • Short stories. Selections
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
When We All Get to Heaven -- I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angels' Feet -- The Eternal Glory That Is Ham Hocks -- Ain't No Sunshine -- Ezekiel Saw the Wheel -- Mamiwata -- Resurrection Hardware; or, Lard & Promises -- The Acts of Velmajean Swearington Hoyt and the New City of God -- Now Why Come That Is? -- God's Gonna Trouble the Water; or, Where is Marisol?
Summary: "Ten heavenly stories that chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives. When Randall Kenan's first collection was published, The New York Times called it "nothing short of a wonder-book." With comparable inventiveness but seasoned by maturity and shot through with humor, his second collection, If I Had Two Wings, riffs on the human relationship with the transcendent. Rooted in Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, NC, this book also travels to more "sophisticated" places, as these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives: a retired North Carolinian on a church trip to Manhattan, taking in life with gentle curiosity, who is befriended by Billy Idol in "When We All Get to Heaven"; the woman whose cooking sparked an eternal hunger in Howard Hughes, in "The Eternal Glory that is Ham Hocks"; a gay man returns from a glamorous life in DC to cope with an ornery uncle in a nursing home in "I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of an Angel's Feed"; and in "The Acts of Velmajean Swearington Hoyt and the New City of God," an elderly woman turned miracle worker, through a grace either divine or diabolical. A rich chorus of voices marked by grit, humor, suffering, and joie de vivre, If I Had Two Wings is a fully satisfying provocation and delight"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction KENAN, RANDALL Available 33111010391940
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high-school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans.

Shot through with humor and seasoned by inventiveness and maturity, Kenan riffs on appetites of all kinds, on the eerie persistence of history, and on unstoppable lovers and unexpected salvations. If I Had Two Wings is a rich chorus of voices and visions, dreams and prophecies, marked by physicality and spirit. Kenan's prose is nothing short of wondrous.

When We All Get to Heaven -- I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of Angels' Feet -- The Eternal Glory That Is Ham Hocks -- Ain't No Sunshine -- Ezekiel Saw the Wheel -- Mamiwata -- Resurrection Hardware; or, Lard & Promises -- The Acts of Velmajean Swearington Hoyt and the New City of God -- Now Why Come That Is? -- God's Gonna Trouble the Water; or, Where is Marisol?

"Ten heavenly stories that chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives. When Randall Kenan's first collection was published, The New York Times called it "nothing short of a wonder-book." With comparable inventiveness but seasoned by maturity and shot through with humor, his second collection, If I Had Two Wings, riffs on the human relationship with the transcendent. Rooted in Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, NC, this book also travels to more "sophisticated" places, as these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives: a retired North Carolinian on a church trip to Manhattan, taking in life with gentle curiosity, who is befriended by Billy Idol in "When We All Get to Heaven"; the woman whose cooking sparked an eternal hunger in Howard Hughes, in "The Eternal Glory that is Ham Hocks"; a gay man returns from a glamorous life in DC to cope with an ornery uncle in a nursing home in "I Thought I Heard the Shuffle of an Angel's Feed"; and in "The Acts of Velmajean Swearington Hoyt and the New City of God," an elderly woman turned miracle worker, through a grace either divine or diabolical. A rich chorus of voices marked by grit, humor, suffering, and joie de vivre, If I Had Two Wings is a fully satisfying provocation and delight"-- Provided by publisher.

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