The Age of Discovery and Other Stories: The Journal Non/Fiction Prize
Autor Becky Hagenstonen Limba Engleză Paperback – 10 aug 2021 – vârsta ani
“These ingenious stories are so funny and sparkling and slyly inventive that their pain catches you by surprise, like a sunburn after a day at the beach.”—Eric Puchner
Winner, 2022 Mississippi Institute for Arts and Letters Prize for Best Fiction
In Becky Hagenston’s fourth collection, the real and the fantastic collide in stories that span from Mississippi to Europe, and from the recent past to the near future. The characters are sex-toy sellers, internet trolls, parents, students, and babysitters—all trying to make sense of a world where nothing is quite what it appears to be. A service robot makes increasingly disturbing requests. A middle school teacher is accused of witchcraft—and realizes the accusations might be true. Two college students devise a way to avoid getting hit on in bars. A baker finds bizarre anomalies in his sourdough. A librarian follows her dead ex-husband through the Atlanta airport. In these stories, men and women confront grief, danger, loneliness, and sometimes—the strangest discovery of all—unexpected joy. Hagenston delivers a collection that is, at its weird and shining heart, about people discovering what—for better or worse—they are capable of.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780814257944
ISBN-10: 0814257941
Pagini: 192
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 18 mm
Greutate: 0.24 kg
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Mad Creek Books
Seria The Journal Non/Fiction Prize
ISBN-10: 0814257941
Pagini: 192
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 18 mm
Greutate: 0.24 kg
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Mad Creek Books
Seria The Journal Non/Fiction Prize
Recenzii
“Hagenston creates incredibly creative stories where characters deal with a variety of very real emotions in somewhat fantastical situations, either at home or abroad. At its essence, this enjoyable collection explores how nothing is ever exactly as it seems.”—Booklist
“The Age of Discovery and Other Stories is a wonderfully dark and strange place, filled with dream bakeries, modern-day witches, robots, and pickpockets. And here too are stories of parenthood, marriages gone wrong, and people longing to be freed from the ghosts that haunt them. A beautiful and fierce collection.” —Alexander Weinstein, author of Universal Love
“These stories are ambitious and inventive. . . . Each time, the most compelling element is not the strangeness of the intricately imagined future but the ways in which the characters learn to interact within it.” —Susan Perabo, author of Why They Run the Way They Do
“These ingenious stories are so funny and sparkling and slyly inventive that their pain catches you by surprise, like a sunburn after a day at the beach. Often they explode in several directions at once, examining a single incident from multiple perspectives, packing more into ten pages than some novels do in two hundred.” —Eric Puchner, author of Last Day on Earth
“Reading these new stories by Becky Hagenston made the world tilt for me. They are magnificently weird and anchored so firmly in the everyday that they feel like magic—like looking through a kaleidoscope that fractures and makes everything beautiful and strange. Or finding a secret passageway in your own house that you’ve been living in forever. I love these stories.” —Michelle Herman, author of Close-Up
“[Hagenston] has masterfully created a work that is captivating and poignant and will leave readers thinking about the characters and their experiences long after the last page is turned.”—Eliot Parker, Clarion-Ledger
“The Age of Discovery and Other Stories is a wonderfully dark and strange place, filled with dream bakeries, modern-day witches, robots, and pickpockets. And here too are stories of parenthood, marriages gone wrong, and people longing to be freed from the ghosts that haunt them. A beautiful and fierce collection.” —Alexander Weinstein, author of Universal Love
“These stories are ambitious and inventive. . . . Each time, the most compelling element is not the strangeness of the intricately imagined future but the ways in which the characters learn to interact within it.” —Susan Perabo, author of Why They Run the Way They Do
“These ingenious stories are so funny and sparkling and slyly inventive that their pain catches you by surprise, like a sunburn after a day at the beach. Often they explode in several directions at once, examining a single incident from multiple perspectives, packing more into ten pages than some novels do in two hundred.” —Eric Puchner, author of Last Day on Earth
“Reading these new stories by Becky Hagenston made the world tilt for me. They are magnificently weird and anchored so firmly in the everyday that they feel like magic—like looking through a kaleidoscope that fractures and makes everything beautiful and strange. Or finding a secret passageway in your own house that you’ve been living in forever. I love these stories.” —Michelle Herman, author of Close-Up
“[Hagenston] has masterfully created a work that is captivating and poignant and will leave readers thinking about the characters and their experiences long after the last page is turned.”—Eliot Parker, Clarion-Ledger
Notă biografică
Becky Hagenston is Professor of English at Mississippi State University. She is the recipient of two O. Henry Prizes and a Pushcart Prize. In addition to The Age of Discovery and Other Stories, she is the author of the collections A Gram of Mars, Strange Weather, and Scavengers.
Extras
The Age of DiscoveryWe’re on the third stop of our Lisbon food tour when I realize that someone is missing. There were eleven of us, and now there are ten. I say to my husband, “Where is that man?” and he says, “What man?” We’re crammed into a little shop with dried and unidentifiable carcass parts hanging from the ceiling. A man in an apron is slicing off pieces of flesh for us to eat.
“That man who said he was from Germany. Sixty-ish, glasses.”
“There wasn’t anybody from Germany,” my husband says.
The tour guide passes around slices of meat, and I count the number of slices: eleven. I count the number of people: ten.
“Oh right,” my husband says. “That man. I don’t know. Isn’t he here?”
Then the tour guide takes the last piece of meat so there isn’t an extra slice after all. My head aches. My feet ache. It’s been raining since we arrived this morning, since we dragged our rolling bags over the cobblestones and up steep hills that didn’t look like hills on the map. The map gave no indication of hills.
The tour guide has a small mustache; he’s wearing a lanyard and a red rain slicker. He’s very enthusiastic about the meat, which is salty and slippery. He kisses his fingers at it. Now there are tiny plastic cups of port wine going around. We’re crammed elbow to elbow in the shop. So maybe the man from Germany is outside? Maybe he’s claustrophobic? He seemed lonely, quiet. He was the only person on the tour by himself.
There are two gray-haired sisters from Dallas who seem friendly, unlike the young Italian couple who hang back and whisper to each other like mean seventh graders. “Do you remember that man?” I say to one of the sisters, trying not to jam her with my elbow. I drink the port too fast. It tastes like sweet prunes. “The man who was by himself?”
“From Australia,” she says, nodding. “Where’d he go?”
“I thought he was from Sweden,” says her sister. “Wowee. This port is going right to my head.”
The tour guide is shoving through our group toward the doorway. “Come along, family!” He calls us his family because we’re all in this together. Also, he said he couldn’t possibly remember our names.
“I’m going to ask him about the missing man,” I tell my husband, who looks annoyed. Maybe he’s annoyed because he left his umbrella back in the hotel, even though I told him to take it. Or maybe he’s annoyed because his phone keeps buzzing, and I keep telling him to ignore it.
Our group flows out into a wide street lined with department stores and restaurants, people drinking under dripping awnings, tourists with their rolling bags. The March rain has slowed to a drip; patches of Portuguese sky—which seems bluer than Mississippi sky—are glowing through the clouds. The tour guide says, “Watch out for pickpockets!” and we clutch at our purses and wallets. I know all about the pickpockets from reading Tripadvisor. I bought myself a purse that’s designed to foil them with its zippered interior, and I bought my husband a shirt with a secret pocket for his wallet. I hear his phone buzz from the non-secret pocket in his jeans.
“Don’t,” I say, and then I head toward the tour guide who’s leading us up a cobblestone hill, because Lisbon is mostly cobblestone hills, it turns out. Up and down, up and down. “Excuse me,” I say. “Do you know what happened to that man who was by himself? I think he was from Germany? Because he’s not here.”
The guide stops, frowns, counts. “Family!” he shouts. “Are we missing one?” He counts again. “We have ten, and I’m eleven. Is anyone not here?” The Italian couple are far ahead, as if they don’t care anymore. The Dallas sisters are staring at a menu on a window. There’s a Swedish husband and wife and a British husband and wife, all white and white-haired and at least sixty years old. My husband and I are both fifty, and for the first time in years I feel youngish even though my knees ache, even though I wish the young Italian couple weren’t snubbing us.
“I think we should go back and find him,” I say, feeling gallant. “Retrace our steps.”
The tour guide seems mad at me. “There are eleven people,” he says, pointing to himself and then counting the rest of us again, pointing up the hill at the disappearing Italians. “Family! This way.” And we trudge on.
I say to the Swedish couple, “Do you remember that man?” The Swedish couple speak perfect English, and earlier they were talking to the Italians in perfect Italian.
The Swedish wife points at the British man. “Him?” she says, and my husband says, “Right, he’s here,” and then his phone buzzes again and I say, “Don’t!”
...
“That man who said he was from Germany. Sixty-ish, glasses.”
“There wasn’t anybody from Germany,” my husband says.
The tour guide passes around slices of meat, and I count the number of slices: eleven. I count the number of people: ten.
“Oh right,” my husband says. “That man. I don’t know. Isn’t he here?”
Then the tour guide takes the last piece of meat so there isn’t an extra slice after all. My head aches. My feet ache. It’s been raining since we arrived this morning, since we dragged our rolling bags over the cobblestones and up steep hills that didn’t look like hills on the map. The map gave no indication of hills.
The tour guide has a small mustache; he’s wearing a lanyard and a red rain slicker. He’s very enthusiastic about the meat, which is salty and slippery. He kisses his fingers at it. Now there are tiny plastic cups of port wine going around. We’re crammed elbow to elbow in the shop. So maybe the man from Germany is outside? Maybe he’s claustrophobic? He seemed lonely, quiet. He was the only person on the tour by himself.
There are two gray-haired sisters from Dallas who seem friendly, unlike the young Italian couple who hang back and whisper to each other like mean seventh graders. “Do you remember that man?” I say to one of the sisters, trying not to jam her with my elbow. I drink the port too fast. It tastes like sweet prunes. “The man who was by himself?”
“From Australia,” she says, nodding. “Where’d he go?”
“I thought he was from Sweden,” says her sister. “Wowee. This port is going right to my head.”
The tour guide is shoving through our group toward the doorway. “Come along, family!” He calls us his family because we’re all in this together. Also, he said he couldn’t possibly remember our names.
“I’m going to ask him about the missing man,” I tell my husband, who looks annoyed. Maybe he’s annoyed because he left his umbrella back in the hotel, even though I told him to take it. Or maybe he’s annoyed because his phone keeps buzzing, and I keep telling him to ignore it.
Our group flows out into a wide street lined with department stores and restaurants, people drinking under dripping awnings, tourists with their rolling bags. The March rain has slowed to a drip; patches of Portuguese sky—which seems bluer than Mississippi sky—are glowing through the clouds. The tour guide says, “Watch out for pickpockets!” and we clutch at our purses and wallets. I know all about the pickpockets from reading Tripadvisor. I bought myself a purse that’s designed to foil them with its zippered interior, and I bought my husband a shirt with a secret pocket for his wallet. I hear his phone buzz from the non-secret pocket in his jeans.
“Don’t,” I say, and then I head toward the tour guide who’s leading us up a cobblestone hill, because Lisbon is mostly cobblestone hills, it turns out. Up and down, up and down. “Excuse me,” I say. “Do you know what happened to that man who was by himself? I think he was from Germany? Because he’s not here.”
The guide stops, frowns, counts. “Family!” he shouts. “Are we missing one?” He counts again. “We have ten, and I’m eleven. Is anyone not here?” The Italian couple are far ahead, as if they don’t care anymore. The Dallas sisters are staring at a menu on a window. There’s a Swedish husband and wife and a British husband and wife, all white and white-haired and at least sixty years old. My husband and I are both fifty, and for the first time in years I feel youngish even though my knees ache, even though I wish the young Italian couple weren’t snubbing us.
“I think we should go back and find him,” I say, feeling gallant. “Retrace our steps.”
The tour guide seems mad at me. “There are eleven people,” he says, pointing to himself and then counting the rest of us again, pointing up the hill at the disappearing Italians. “Family! This way.” And we trudge on.
I say to the Swedish couple, “Do you remember that man?” The Swedish couple speak perfect English, and earlier they were talking to the Italians in perfect Italian.
The Swedish wife points at the British man. “Him?” she says, and my husband says, “Right, he’s here,” and then his phone buzzes again and I say, “Don’t!”
...
Cuprins
Perishables
Witnesses
Seven Ravens
The Age of Discovery
The Celebrity
Young Susan
Hi Ho Cherry-O
Sea Ice
Sharon by the Seashore
Cornfield, Cornfield, Cornfield
Rise
Hematite, Apatite
Fillies
Basic Commands
The Sitters
Starry Night
In the Museum of Tense Moments
Storage and Retrieval
Acknowledgments
Witnesses
Seven Ravens
The Age of Discovery
The Celebrity
Young Susan
Hi Ho Cherry-O
Sea Ice
Sharon by the Seashore
Cornfield, Cornfield, Cornfield
Rise
Hematite, Apatite
Fillies
Basic Commands
The Sitters
Starry Night
In the Museum of Tense Moments
Storage and Retrieval
Acknowledgments
Descriere
The real and the fantastic collide in wildly imaginative stories of characters discovering what—for better or worse—they are capable of.