114 books match the query 'Other Stories' and 5 start with p
James Still
Ohio University Press, 0
Published in 2001 by Gnomon Press
This reissue of a 1976 collection, featuring a new afterword by Wendell Berry, showcases James Still’s enduring mastery of the short story form. Set in the Appalachian region, these twelve stories reflect the rhythms, dialects, and deep-rooted traditions of mountain life, rendered with quiet power and poetic precision.
Still’s characters—rural craftsmen, widows, children, and wanderers—navigate the complexities of isolation, kinship, and survival. Stories like “The Nest,” “The Scrape,” and “Maybird Upshaw” reveal a landscape both stark and tender, where the natural world and human spirit intertwine. With language shaped by the unique dialect of eastern Kentucky, Still’s prose honors the dignity of his subjects without sentimentality or condescension.
This collection affirms Still’s place among the great chroniclers of American regional life, offering readers a poignant and authentic portrait of a vanishing world.
Geary Hobson
Michigan State University Press, 2011
In the opening story of Geary Hobson’s riveting new collection, Plain of Jars, a young private confides to his friend that he’s trying to leave the Marine Corps. “I am not doing this just because I find the Marine Corps too tough,” Warren Needham says, but because violence is contradictory to his faith. The story’s surprising climax, however, reveals a different side of Needham’s contradictory nature. It’s this acute understanding of conflict that characterizes Plain of Jars, a book populated by bullies, men in combat, abusive spouses, and Native Americans seeking a sense of personal identity in an environment where conformity is law. The U.S. Marine Corps sets the stage for a number of these stories, whose protagonists combat racism, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and the looming reality of the Vietnam War. With pitch perfect dialogue and a sense of the unexpected, Plain of Jars tests the depths of complex lives.
Iván Mándy
Seagull Books, 2021
Jane Bradley
University of Arkansas Press, 1989
Anne Calcagno
Northwestern University Press, 1993