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My WorksSpit Baths
With a reporter's eye for the inside story and a historian's grasp of the ironies in our collective past, Greg Downs affectionately observes some of the last survivors of what Greil Marcus has called the old, weird America. Living off the map and out of sight, folks like Embee, Rudy, Peg, and Branch define themselves by where they are, not by what they eat, drink, or wear. The man who is soon to abandon his family in "Ain't I a King, Too?" is mistaken for the populist autocrat of Louisiana, Huey P. Long-on the day after Long's assassination. In "Hope Chests," a history teacher marries his student and takes her away from a place she hated, only to find that neither one of them can fully leave it behind. An elderly man in "Snack Cakes" enlists his grandson to help distribute his belongings among his many ex-wives, living and dead. In the title story, another intergenerational family tale, a young boy is caught in a feud between his mother and grandmother. The older woman uses the language of baseball to convey her view of religion and nobility to her grandson before the boy's mother takes him away, maybe forever. Caught up in pasts both personal and epic, Downs's characters struggle to maintain their peculiar, grounded manners in an increasingly detached world. I Do Not Support the Troops
This story about a young woman and her tense and tender ties to her nephew is the first post-Spit Baths story I have published, in serial form in the arts section of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Black Pork
storySouth published "Black Pork" as their featured story in the Nov. 2006 issue. Adam's Curse
This story is forthcoming from New Letters and is the first one in the collection. Indoor Plumbing
This is a fairly short story that recently appeared in StorySouth, an excellent online magazine of southern literary life. Field Trip
Short story from the collection that appeared in Philadelphia Stories Other published stories in the collection
“The Hired Man,” short story, forthcoming, Witness special issue, Exile in America, Fall 2006. “Adam’s Curse,” short story, forthcoming, New Letters, Spring 2006. “Between States,” short story, Black Warrior Review, Spring/Summer 2006. “Snack Cakes,” short story, Glimmer Train, Winter 2004. “Hope Chests,” short story, Meridian, Fall/Winter 2001. “Ain’t I A King, Too?” short story, Greensboro Review, Spring 2000. “Freedom Rides,” short story, Southeast Review, Fall 2002. “A Comparative History of Nashville Love Affairs,” short story, Wind, Winter 2002. “Spit Baths,” short story, Sycamore Review, Summer/Fall 2002. Published stories not in the collection
“Sugar Water,” short story, Chicago Reader, Special Fiction Issue Dec. 2001. “The Currency of the World,” short story, CutBank, Spring 2002. “Driving Lessons,” short story, The Literary Review, Fall 2002. “The Life We Shared,” short story, South Dakota Review, Spring 2001. |
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