The Talker
Stories
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- €8.99
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- €8.99
Publisher Description
"If you ever wondered what life is like for the down and out, the remarkable Sojourner lays it out in precise and unsparing prose in her latest collection of short stories."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
From security guards and jack rabbits to bartenders and blue herons, the desert–dwellers in The Talker surface with grit and grace from dust–blown trailers, ancient Joshua trees, and artificial lakes. With her signature down–to–earth storytelling style, Mary Sojourner explores the lives of working class people, threats to Western landscapes, and the complexities of love. The Talker depicts a community weathering the desert glare of the Mojave, seeking refuge, truth, and escape.
MARY SOJOURNER is the author of the novels, 29, Sisters of the Dream and Going Through Ghosts; the short story collections The Talker and Delicate; an essay collection, Bonelight: Ruin and Grace in the New Southwest; and memoirs, Solace: Rituals of Loss and Desire and She Bets Her Life. She is an intermittent NPR commentator and the author of many essays, columns and op–eds for High Country News, Writers on the Range, and other publications. A graduate of the University of Rochester, Sojourner teaches writing in private circles, one–on–one, at colleges and universities, writing conferences, and book festivals. She believes in both the limitations and possibilities of healing through writing—the most powerful tool she has found for doing what is necessary to mend. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If you ever wondered what life is like for the down and out, the remarkable Sojourner lays it out in precise and unsparing prose in her latest collection of short stories. The author grabs you with an irresistible first line in each tale that leads into a singular world in the Southwest where desperate individuals grapple with getting by day to day. "Great Blue," about life behind the scenes in a restaurant, showcases a transformative love story gone terribly wrong when addiction rears its ugly head. "Fat Jacks" delves into the life of a divorced father who barely makes ends meet with a night-shift job and lives for visits with his son. In "Kashmir," a teenager coping with her father's death finds an unlikely kindred spirit in a patient in the nursing home where she works to help her mother pay the bills. The title story exposes the deadly effects a newcomer has on a motley group of characters who've found a safe haven in a group of cabins in northern Arizona run by a former alcoholic who strictly enforces abstinence. Throughout, Sojourner's ability to bring extraordinary characters to life and bring depth and heart to ordinary circumstances makes this collection memorable.
