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Interviews | June 14, 2013
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More copies of this ISBNOther titles in the John Simmons Short Fiction Awards series:
Tell Everyone I Said Hi (John Simmons Short Fiction Awards)by Chad Simpson
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The world of Tell Everyone I Said Hi is geographically small but far from provincial in its portrayal of emotionally complicated lives. With all the heartbreaking earnestness of a Wilco song, these eighteen stories by Chad Simpson roam the small-town playgrounds, blue-collar neighborhoods, and rural highways of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky to find people who’ve lost someone or something they love and have not yet found ways to move forward. Simpson’s remarkable voice masterfully moves between male and female and adolescent and adult characters. He embraces their helplessness and shares their sad, strange, and sometimes creepy slices of life with grace, humor, and mounds of empathy. In “Peloma,” a steelworker grapples with his preteen daughter’s feeble suicide attempts while the aftermath of his wife’s death and the politics of factory life vie to hem him in. The narrator of “Fostering” struggles to determine the ramifications of his foster child’s past now that he and his wife are expecting their first biological child. In just two pages, “Let x” negotiates the yearnings and regrets of childhood through mathematical variables and the summertime interactions of two fifth-graders. Poignant, fresh, and convincing, these are stories of women who smell of hairspray and beer and of landscapers who worry about their livers, of flooded basements and loud trucks, of bad exes and horrible jobs, of people who remain loyal to sports teams that always lose. Displaced by circumstances both in and out of their control, the characters who populate Tell Everyone I Said Hi are lost in their own surroundings, thwarted by misguided aspirations and long-buried disappointments, but fully open to the possibility that they will again find their way. Review:"The stories in Simpson's debut collection oscillate between short-shorts — such as 'Let x,' which casts the elementary school war of the sexes as an insoluble math problem, or 'Miracle,' wherein the narrator relates his brother's reaction to being run over by a car — and longer tales that examine the stunted lives of an alcoholic in permanent recovery, pining for his pregnant ex; a successful, happily married lawyer looking back on a former flame and pondering the son he never had with her; and a young boy who has an unexpectedly intimate encounter with an older female neighbor whose celebrated beauty was ruined in a tragic car wreck years ago. Simpson is a capable writer, but his lyrical efforts are too like the early work of Raymond Carver, and his shorter pieces end too soon. However, a pair of longer linked stories, 'Peloma' and 'Consent,' which feature a widower father trapped in a demanding factory job, provide the emotional depth and sense of authenticity that the other stories lack. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Synopsis:The world of Tell Everyone I Said Hi is geographically small but far from provincial in its portrayal of emotionally complicated lives. With all the heartbreaking earnestness of a Wilco song, these eighteen stories by Chad Simpson roam the small-town playgrounds, blue-collar neighborhoods, and rural highways of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky to find people who’ve lost someone or something they love and have not yet found ways to move forward. About the AuthorChad Simpson was raised in Monmouth, Illinois, and Logansport, Indiana. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly, Esquire, American Short Fiction, The Sun, and many other print and online publications. He is the recipient of a fellowship in prose from the Illinois Arts Council and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ conferences. He teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he received the Philip Green Wright/Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching in 2010. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Related SubjectsFiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
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