A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY16 start with W start with W
Small wonder that Evenson's work has attracted so much attention among philosophers, literary critics, and other speculative intelligences, for it continuously projects a tantalizing absence, as though there were some key or code that, if only we knew it, would illuminate everything. However, the blade of discernment wavers, and we are left to our own groping interpretations.
The stories in Victoria Lancelotta’s Ways to Disappear excavate the unexamined places between dread and desire, promise and threat, where the body is both prison and salvation. Populated by the grieving and the exultant and those who see no difference between the two, by men and women who are only a little bit broken and boys and girls who can’t wait to be, by souls untethered, rootless, yet bound by blood and flesh, Lancelotta’s characters are driven by the irresistible need to be a bigger part of the worlds they each inhabit, by turns strange and commonplace. In language lush and jagged, never sentimental, these stories scrutinize the exhaustion and enchantment of the everyday: houses seething with resentment and devotion, cars dream-full and hurtling the children in them into a world they think they know but can’t imagine; front porches, back yards, luxury hotels, and truck stops. Lancelotta understands that sometimes people check their wounds not to see if they’ve healed, but to be sure they’re still there.
These finely wrought stories unfold in the Dakotas during the struggling pioneer days and bone-dry landscape of the thirties as well as the verdant years that followed, where the nighttime plains are bathed by softly radiant harvest moons shining down from dazzling northern skies. Young's absorbing narratives begin with the pleasant sense of “Once upon a time…” anticipation, but the firmly sketched details, warm humor, and vivid characterizations reveal an unanticipated and satisfying realism.
The haunting title story is about a beautiful and tragic pioneer woman and her wedding dress; her gown takes on a life of its own and turns into an enduring symbol for the grace and compassion of homesteading women on the plains. In “Bank Night,” a hired hand working during the midst of the Depression wins $250 at the movies, careening him into a single night of notoriety that becomes a legend in its time. “The Nights of Ragna Rundhaug” tells the tale of a woman who wants only to be left alone with her white dog, Vittehund, and her crocheting but instead is propelled into a life of midwifery “because there was no one else to do it.” The babies have predilection for arriving during blizzards and always at night, when she must be transported across the dark plains by frantic husbands who have fortified themselves with strong drink and headstrong horses.
All the stories in The Wedding Dress are linked by the enigmatic Nordic characters who people them and by the skill with which Young draws them. Emotions run so deep that they are seldom able to surface; when they do the interaction is extraordinarily luminous, both for the characters themselves and for the fortunate reader. The Wedding Dress is for all readers, young and old.
The atmospheric stories in When illuminate the customs of rural America, a part of this country that’s been asked to risk the best of itself in order to survive, revealing with humor and weight fears about wealth, worth, and the dignity of home.
Dark, strange beauties, all of the stories in The Whole World at Once follow the lives of people grappling with what it means to live in a world with death.
An orphaned boy fights to keep the dilapidated home that contains the memory of his family. A sawyer's nephew scrambles to recall the skills of the trade in the wake of his uncle's death. A corrections teacher strains to give his son direction in a remote prison town after his addict mother deserts them. These stories create a portrait of the difficult decisions people must make in unforgiving surroundings and the consequences of the battle to press on.
Published in cooperation with Association of Writers and Writing Programs.
On the occasion of the Capitol’s centennial in 2017, this book tells the remarkable story of the building—in all its incarnations—and the people who made history beneath its dome. The book covers the creation of the territorial capitol in 1837, the construction of the second capitol in the 1860s (and the fire that almost completely destroyed it in 1904), the eleven-year construction project that completed the third capitol in 1917, and the extensive conservation project of the 1990s that restored the building to its grandeur. Supporting the framework of this architectural history are colorful stories about the people who shaped Wisconsin from within the Capitol—attorneys, senators, and governors (from Henry Dodge to Scott Walker), as well as protesters, reformers, secretaries, tour guides, custodians, and even Old Abe, the Capitol’s resident eagle. Combining historical photographs with modern, full-color architectural photos, The Wisconsin Capitol provides fascinating details about the building, while also emphasizing the importance of the Capitol in Wisconsin’s storied history.
The astonishing talent of Argentine women writers belies the struggles they have faced—not merely as overlooked authors, but as women of conviction facing oppression. The patriarchal pressures of the Perón years, the terror of the Dirty War, and, more recently, the economic collapse that gripped the nation in 2001 created such repressive conditions that some writers, such as Luisa Valenzuela, left the country for long periods. Not surprisingly, power has become an inescapable theme in Argentine women's fiction, and this collection shows how the dynamics of power capture not only the political world but also the personal one. Whether their characters are politicians and peasants, torturers and victims, parents and children, or lovers male and female, each writer explores the effects of power as it is exercised by or against women.
The fifteen writers chosen for Women and Power in Argentine Literature include famous names such as Valenzuela, as well as authors anthologized for the first time, most notably María Kodama, widow of Jorge Luis Borges. Each chapter begins with a "verbal portrait," editor Gwendolyn Díaz's personal impression of the author at ease, formed through hours of conversation and interviews. A biographical essay and critical commentary follow, with emphasis on the work included in this anthology. Díaz's interviews, translated from Spanish, and finally the stories themselves—only three of which have been previously published in English—complete the chapters. The extraordinary depth of these chapters reflects the nuanced, often controversial portrayals of power observed by Argentine women writers. Inspiring as well as insightful, Women and Power in Argentine Literature is ultimately about women who, in Díaz's words, "choose to speak their truth regardless of the consequences."
Across the state and across a wide variety of musical genres, women are making their mark on Texas music. Some have become international superstars, while others are just starting to make their voices heard. But every woman who goes out and plays her music proves that "baring one's heart and soul takes courage, and Texas women artists have a lot of courage," as Lloyd Maines observes in the opening interview of this book. To pay tribute to these dedicated musicians and to capture their unique perspectives on what it means to be a woman in the music business, Kathleen Hudson has spent many years interviewing Texas women musicians for the Texas Heritage Music Foundation.
In Women in Texas Music, Hudson lets us listen in on conversations with thirty-nine musical artists, including Emily Robison, Terri Hendrix, Lee Ann Womack, Rosie Flores, Betty Buckley, Marcia Ball, Lavelle White, and Bobbie Nelson. Hudson encourages and allows the women to tell their own stories as she delves into their life journeys, creative processes, and the importance of writing and performing music, be it blues, rock, country, folk, jazz, or pop. The interviews are warm and open, like good friends sharing the lessons that a life of playing music has taught them.
What emerges from this collection is a solid sense of the strength and integrity that women bring to and gain from Texas music. Everyone who cares about music and culture in Texas will want to join the conversation.
What do we find in the woods? An uplifting of spirit or a quieting of sorrow. A sense of being haunted by the past. Sometimes rougher, more violent things: abandoned quarries and feral cats, black bears, brothers caught up in an escalating war, a ghost who wishes to pass on her despair, monsters who boom with hollow ecstatic laughter. But also songbirds: the hermit thrush and the winter wren. Rushing rivers glossy with froth. A nineteenth-century inn that’s somehow gotten by all these years. And far within, a vegetal twilight and constant dusk that feels outside of time. This remarkable debut illuminates the ways we all carry within ourselves aspects stark, beautiful, wild, and unknowable.
“It seems like everybody but people from here are sure about what we’re about, and they make money being wrong about it.” The residents of Labor County, a fictional small community in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky, may be short on cash, but they are rich in creativity and tirelessly inventive as they concoct new schemes to make ends meet, settle old scores, and work off their debts to society and, in a way, to themselves.
A zealous history professor is caught stealing from the local museum in protest of petty theft; an arsonist strikes it lucky—twice; a skilled leatherworker saddles a turkey and finds a rider; an angel aspires to be a punk rock Roller Derby princess; a grieving artist carves a miracle into a roadside rock face; and affable Uncle Archie produces a seemingly unending supply of new and bizarre items to display in his Odditorium.
More than a collection of tales, Working It Off in Labor County assembles memorable characters who recur across these seventeen linked stories, sharing in one another’s struggles and stumbling upon humor and mystery, the grotesque and the divine, each in many forms.
The Millions' Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half of 2020 Book Preview
The gripping, thought-provoking stories in Yxta Maya Murray’s latest collection find their inspiration in the headlines. Here, ordinary people negotiate tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. A nurse volunteers to serve in catastrophe-stricken Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and discovers that her skill and compassion are useless in the face of stubborn governmental inertia. An Environmental Protection Agency employee, whose agricultural-worker parents died after long exposure to a deadly pesticide, finds herself forced to find justifications for reversing regulations that had earlier banned the chemical. A Department of Education employee in a dystopic future America visits a highly praised charter school and discovers the horrific consequences of academic failure. A transgender trainer of beauty pageant contestants takes on a beautiful Latina for the Miss USA pageant and brings her to perfection and the brink of victory, only to discover that she has a fatal secret.
The characters in these stories grapple with the consequences of frightening attitudes and policies pervasive in the United States today. The stories explore not only our distressing human capacity for moral numbness in the face of evil, but also reveal our surprising stores of compassion and forgiveness. These brilliantly conceived and beautifully written stories are troubling yet irresistible mirrors of our time.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press