Praying Drunk
Stories
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“I finished this book with my heart pounding and grateful, my coffee cold and my smile wide and crying like a baby.” —Daniel Handler
The characters in Praying Drunk speak in tongues, torture classmates, fall in love, abandon their children, keep machetes beneath passenger seats, and collect porcelain figurines. Ranging from Kentucky to Florida to Haiti, these stories enact the struggle to remain physically and spiritually alive throughout an untamable, turbulent world.
Described as an author whose “voice lands somewhere between William Faulkner and Stephen King” (New Pages), Kyle Minor presents a dark, compelling collection of fiction showcasing the talent that has earned him multiple literary honors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Similar to a great magic trick, the 13 stories in Minor's (In the Devil's Territory) latest lure reader investment with strong visuals while simultaneously pulling the rug out from underfoot with clever, literary sleights of-hand. Though not necessarily linked in the traditional sense, there is a sequential order to the collection ideas, locations, incidents, and characters echo as the volume chugs forward and the result is an often dazzling, emotional, funny, captivating puzzle. At the heart of the book are the Haitian tales "Seven Stories About Sebastian of Koul v-Ville" and "In a Distant Country." Set within the same village, though separated by decades, the narratives follow the lives of missionaries and the natives they look to aid during the Duvalier dictatorship and after the 2010 earthquake. The ideas of trust and faith run deep, and these emotions bleed throughout the collection, particularly in the narratives concerning a character akin to the author, who frets over his musician brother (in "There Is Nothing but Sadness in Nashville"), his dying grandfather (in "First, the Teeth"), and his own convictions (in "You Shall Go Out with Joy and Be Led Forth with Peace" and its companion, "Suspended"). Minor's continuous play with form keeps the book fresh, despite a somewhat distracting presentation.
