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Title: Little America (Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction)
Author: Diane Simmons
Narrator: Rachel Stander
Format: Unabridged
Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
Language: English
Release date: 06-25-13
Publisher: University Press Audiobooks
Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies
Publisher's Summary:
Little America is for anyone who has ever considered just getting in the car and driving away. Here the ribbon of Western road is a metaphor for the heart's strange longings, providing hard, sometimes hilarious, lessons on the improbability of escape, the possibility of salvation, and the elusiveness of self-knowledge.
In "Yukon River," young lovers with a seedy past risk everything to be purified in the Alaska outback; they encounter instead the ruthless opportunism and alluring corruption of oil boom Fairbanks. In "Suitcase," a modern "Heart of Darkness," the road meanders from California down through impoverished Mexico and then sinks into a deadly Guatemalan jungle where the idealism of an earlier era gently rots. "Roll starts in a truck on a cliff top in Idaho, one wheel off the edge. "Little America" travels with grifters on the lam who choke up at the sight of an Oregon wheat field at sunrise; later, in Wyoming, they are made solemn by the grandeur of the world's biggest truck stop and pause to ponder: Why would anyone willingly stay in one place?
With deadpan humor, perfect pitch voice, and keen love of place, Simmons's stories illuminate the abiding American desire to "light out" - if not necessarily for something better, at least for something new.
The book is published by The Ohio State University Press.
The Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction.
Critic Reviews:
"Simmons tells her stories with a rich, earthy humor that miraculously manages to honor the people for their self-awareness and struggle even as they are repeatedly caught and trapped by the failures and limitations of their lives." (Meredith Sue Willis, author of In the Mountains of America)
"Diane Simmons's Little America is a contemporary Western, reminiscent of stories by E. L. Doctorow, Richard Bausch, and Richard Ford." (Chris Fink, Editor, Beloit Fiction Journal)
Members Reviews:
Take Your Time
There's a reason a short story is a short story. You're supposed to read a short story in one sitting. I took three or four, and sometimes when I was lucky,five or six sittings to finish a story. I didn't want the story to end. Not one or two. Or some. Or most. But all.
I'm particular about short stories. They have to be just right. These are.
I'm not even interested in trying to describe what I read and what I believe it may mean. These are good stories. Great ones.
Primarily because they're about people, human beings. Some we've known. Some we wish we had. Some like me.
Primarily (I realize I'm repeating myself) this is a writer who is a storyteller. Whatever she may have learned along the way I suspect she already knew. Knew more than she was being taught, but no doubt learned it well again anyway.
There's not a story in little america I wish I hadn't written. And there's not a story that couldn't be the opening of a novel you couldn't put down.
Don't take my word for it. Buy the boook. Read the stories. And hope she writes more.
A Fresh Take on the Highway
I first encountered Diane Simmons' story "Yukon River" in the Missouri Review and was swept away by its quirky characters and its great story-telling voice.