By: George Singleton Publisher: Harvest Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harvest Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 256 Publication Date: September 16, 2002
Once you start reading George Singleton's eagerly awaited first book of stories, a strange thing happens: You discover that the characters sound like people you know--people who are trying hard to make sense of modern absurdities. With a style all his own, Singleton fashions a world that wins our hearts but teases our senses: how to find a black-market sonogram so your pregnant wife won't find out you accidentally taped over the original; how to help your father and everyone else in town fake being hit by a tornado to get emergency government funds; and why not to look for your next wife at your local recycling center. Step into Singleton's world and you'll see why he is earning a reputation as one of the funniest, wisest, and most surprising Southern writers of his generation--and why he was named one of the "new writers you need to know" by Book Magazine.
It Has to Be the Mushroom Soup-based Casseroles I wrote a review here when this book first came out, and somehow it's gone by the wayside, so here's part II which is more or less a faint memory of the first.
Southerners often provide excellent characters for stories. Perhaps it's all the sweet potatoes, fried chicken, and mushroom-soup based casseroles that are consumed south of the Mason-Dixon that creates these masterful personality quirks that George captures so well. Every character he creates, I can not only envision, but tell you who they're related to, where they go to church, and what their drink of choice is.
George, much like a character out of a Tom Waits song himself, writes from experiences and observations. He places the reader right in the heart of his narrators and creates a world around that's real enough to smell.
He's just brilliant. The book...also brilliant.
My wife kept talking about convection ovens. With that we begin a trip, a trip down the backroads of the south. A trip that includes dogs benesth the porch, recycled beer cans, and midget plumbers! Everything that makes the South great! George has replaced Raymond Carver as my favorite short story writer.
Great Short Stories! No one writes like George Singleton. Every short story in this grand collection -- as good as, if not better than, J.D. Salinger's NINE STORIES -- is a classic gem. Told with tongue-in-cheek, "These People Are Us" views the world in Singleton's own inimitable vision, sliding through the cracks of life with a grand sweep. In stories that have been published in Playboy, Georgia Literary Review and other literary quarterlies, this collection sings as no other song can be sung. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if Singleton doesn't win the biggest awards in the land with this, his first book.
This is no lie! George Singleton is one of those writers who appears regularly in the best of quarterlies and reviews: Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Glimmer Train, Southern Review, even a couple stories in Playboy. This deserved collection has been a long time coming.
And this is no lie: this boy can write. His stories penetrate the South, depicting narrators in all manner of fixes (taping over a wife's sonogram, caulking a house to within an inch of its life, reporting on a fake tornado, helping blind men shoot pool) in a prose that is as elegant as the Peabody, as savory as barbecue. He nails the Southern experience (call it, perhaps, Good Ol Boy lit), creating empathetic characters and the funniest situations this side the Mississippi.
There are classics here ("Crawl Space," "Outlaw Head and Tail," and the title story jump immediately to mind), stories that deserve to be read for generations to come.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
