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Debut collection by winner of the first annual BOA Short Fiction Prize. Quirky, funny stories by a singular new voice.
List of contents
Contents
Against Specificity 4
The Death of John O'Brien 16
The Era of Not Quite 19
Molly Rivers, 83, Held Outlandish Views 31
I'm Sorry I Lost the Scrap of Paper on Which You
Outlined Your Plans for the Future 33
My Memoir 34
When the World Broke 35
Men 44
My Foot Is on Fire 47
The Man Who Was Cast into the Void 48
What I Did on My Summer Vacation 52
Special Advertising Section 61
Wolves 65
The Purest Note That Had Ever Been Sung 67
Two Country Gentlemen 76
The Cave 78
Pachyderms 82
Life on the Moon 84
Marcy Loves Joey 85
The Fate of Mothers 86
Narrative of the Life of Jacob Livesey 87
Author Sentenced for Life 89
New Animal 92
The Messenger Who Did Not Become a Hero 106
Acknowledgments 125
About the author
Douglas Watson is the winner of the first annual BOA Short Fiction Prize. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University and an MA in history from Brown University. He works at
TIME magazine and has also done editorial work at
Sports Illustrated, The Journal, and two academic journals,
The New England Quarterly and
Current History. Stories from The Era of Not Quite have appeared in
Tin House (online), Sou'Wester, and
Fifty-Two Stories.
Summary
Debut collection by winner of the first annual BOA Short Fiction Prize. Quirky, funny stories by a singular new voice.
