Working It Off in Labor County
Stories
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- £13.99
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- £13.99
Publisher Description
Humorous and wry stories of misfits and ordinary people in an Appalachian community struggling creatively to make sense of an often nonsensical world.
“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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thacker (Drifting in Awe) delivers a rollicking portrayal of small-town Kentucky life. In the title story, history professor Roger serves out a community service sentence for stealing Civil War artifacts he'd donated to a museum. In "Hot Ticket," a man scours trash bins for discarded lottery tickets and turns up with a winner, then leaves his previous career as hired arsonist to start a church called the Holy Fire of God. In "Uncle Archie's Acquisition," a teenager watches over his uncle Archie's Traveling Odditorium while Archie is away hunting for new treasures, and becomes intrigued by a recently acquired cryotube that might contain human remains. The Odditorium appears again in "Uncle Archie's Underground Reunion," in which a photographer visits it and promises to make the family famous with a photo essay based on Archie's installations, described as "a miniature hybrid of the burial catacombs of Paris and the Capuchin mummy vaults of Italy, created mostly of leftover Kentucky Fried Chicken scrap bones." When the photographer turns out to be a charlatan, the family turns on him. The characters cross paths throughout their misadventures and transformations in stories unified by strong narrative drive and well-crafted prose. Fans of George Singleton will love this.
