Synopses & Reviews
A blistering collection of stories from an exhilarating new voiceOne man kills another after neither will move his pickup truck from the road. A female sheriff in a flooded town attempts to cover up a murder. When a farmer harvesting a field accidentally runs over his son, his grief sets him off walking, mile after mile. A band of teens bent on destruction runs amok in a deserted town at night. As these men and women lash out at the inscrutable churn of the world around them, they find a grim measure of peace in their solitude.
Throughout Volt, Alan Heathcocks stark realism is leavened by a lyric energy that matches the brutality of the surface. And as you move through the wind-lashed landscape of these stories, faint signs of hope appear underfoot. In Volt, the work of a writer whos hell-bent on wrenching out whatever beauty this savage world has to offer, Heathcocks tales of lives set afire light up the sky like signal flares touched off in a moment of desperation.
Review
"Misery is in plentiful supply in these dark, thickly atmospheric tales of spiritual desolation and savagery. Fans of William Gay and Daniel Woodrell will savor these stories where sin and suffering shroud the hope of redemption." Publisher's Weekly
Review
"Heathcock is a writer to watch; each of these subtle stories will thrill readers with an element of surprise that will make them want to go back and see how it happened and what they missed along the way." Library Journal
Review
"Raw and rugged, the stories in Heathcock's collection push up against the sharp edge of a world where people live and die, and find any redemption hard-won and sometimes bittersweet." Kirkus Reviews
Review
“This is a big, ravishing, commanding story collection. Heathcock presents a riveting portrait of an imaginary town called Krafton: through its streets and farms and minds spin questions about civilization and wilderness, lawkeeping and lawlessness, faith and faithlessness. Each story in its way shows how we reverberate after tragedy, and how we try — and sometimes fail — to vibrate our way back toward equilibrium. Volt is (dare I say it?) electrifying.” Anthony Doerr, author of Memory Wall and The Shell Collector
Synopsis
One man kills another after neither will move his pickup truck from the road. A female sheriff in a flooded town attempts to cover up a murder. When a farmer harvesting a field accidentally runs over his son, his grief sets him off walking, mile after mile. A band of teens bent on destruction runs amok in a deserted town at night. As these men and women lash out at the inscrutable churn of the world around them, they find a grim measure of peace in their solitude.
Throughout Volt, Alan Heathcock's stark realism is leavened by a lyric energy that matches the brutality of the surface. And as you move through the wind-lashed landscape of these stories, faint signs of hope appear underfoot. In Volt, the work of a writer who's hell-bent on wrenching out whatever beauty this savage world has to offer, Heathcock's tales of lives set afire light up the sky like signal flares touched off in a moment of desperation.
Synopsis
A blistering collection of stories from an exhilarating new voice.
About the Author
ALAN HEATHCOCKs work has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Mystery Stories, among other places. He is the winner of a National Magazine Award in fiction.