Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short-Short Stories
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A unique collection. The only anthology of short-short stories to focus on youth.
In these stories of no more than 1000 words, well-known and emerging American authors spotlight crucial moments of change during coming-of-age. Their young protagonists face matters of great consequence, such as the death of a parent, unwanted pregnancy, and bullying, as well as lighter, if perplexing circumstances: how to hold a prom when being home-schooled; what to do when the babysitter suddenly sees the Rapture. The stories are of this moment--a girl who falls in love and then is pressured to lose her virginity in a cyberspace world--and they also remember the past: the Nixon era, the Vietnam War, slavery. Here is a glimpse into the way we live now from the point of view of those who will determine the future. Among the contributors are Steve Almond, Peter Bacho, Richard Bausch, Gayle Brandeis, Richard Brautigan, Ron Carlson, Kelly Cherry, Dave Eggers, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Jim Heynen, Victor Lavalle, Meg Kearney, Naomi Shihab Nye, Maryann O'Hara, Sonia Pilcer, Pamela Painter, Bruce Holland Rogers, Robert Shapard, and Alice Walker.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Featuring emerging and established writers (e.g. Azizat Danmole and Alice Walker, respectively), this anthology brings together 65 short stories each under 1,000 words that deal with adolescence and childhood. Given its thematic unity, the collection displays a staggering amount of invention and variety, though, at times, the reiteration of "coming-of-age" narratives in such close proximity risks deadening the effect. Manuela Soares' "The Haircut," in which a teenage protagonist comes to grips with her sexuality and incipient lesbianism, is immediately followed by the revelation of unexpected humanity and concomitant appreciation of mortality on the part of rural children in Jim Heynen's "What Happened During the Ice Storm." Among the strongest are the pieces that are written from the perspective of an adolescent or younger child, such as Gayle Brandeis's, "Rapture" narrated by a young Jewish girl who has been spooked about the Biblical rapture by her Christian babysitter, or Caron A. Levis's "A Whole Other," a monologue in the bittersweet voice of a high school aged mother. Included also is more experimental, surrealistic work such as "The Perpetual Now," by Daniel Levin Becker, in which a boy's desire to live "fully in every moment" leads to an attempt to "eliminate the useless from his dreaming state," leaving him "terribly, oppressively bored." While this anthology is as much directed at adolescents as about them, anyone who has to use Flannery O'Connor's phrase "survived childhood" will appreciate this excellent collection.
