Stiff / Steve Hughes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hughes, Steve (Zine author), author.

Series:

Made in Michigan writers series.

Made in Michigan writers series

Standardized Title:

Short stories. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Short stories, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 PDF (173 pages).)

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2018]

Summary:

With a hearty helping of Detroit grit, the stories in Stiff pay homage to a city turned upside down by economic abandonment. Steve Hughes pushes the boundaries of realism, creating situations that seem odd and otherworldly. In his Detroit, witches cast spells to improve their husbands, chickens grow from seeds, and house painters with anger management issues proclaim themselves poet laureates. The characters in Stiff are all searching for something in each other--a certain wholeness or understanding, a place to rest and call home. Hughes writes with great empathy about people who are struggling with their lives. In "Ripening," a man and woman in an illicit affair witness their genitals leaving their bodies for a rendezvous. In "Dexter's Song," a drug-addicted saxophone player meets a bored suburban woman who gives him her ex-boyfriend's sax, which unleashes a series of disasters but the instrument is so fine, so perfect, that when he holds it to his lips he can do no wrong. Readers of contemporary fiction will enjoy this inventive and evocative collection of stories.

Contents:

Stiff: Stories by Steve Hughes

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Contents

Lucky Fucking Day

Only Wilma

I Am Still Learning About the World

Ripening

Her Walls Not Mine

When Drink, Drugs, and Floor Polish Steal Your Youth and Trash Your Woman

Dexter's Song

Part Plant, Part Animal, Part Insect

New Phase

The Perfect Song

Forest Parker, Poet Laureate of Lumpkin Street

Wood for Rhonda

Bullets for Charlene

God, That Kimchi!

I Don't Feel Sorry For Mrs. Miller

Ted and His Heartbeat

Acknowledgments

About the Author.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8143-4589-1

OCLC:

1078741333