Description: In this collection of Mason's best short stories, Mason moves through the lives of ordinary Kentucky people, capturing their tangled aspirations and buried disappointments as they struggle with the ironies of modern life in a traditional rural society.
Brief description:
Bobbie Ann Mason is the author of a number of works of fiction, including The Girl in the Blue Beret, In Country, An Atomic Romance, and Nancy Culpepper. The groundbreaking Shiloh and Other Stories won the PEN Hemingway Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award, and the PEN Faulkner Award. Her memoir, Clear Springs, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won two Southern Book Awards and numerous other prizes, including the O. Henry and the Pushcart. Former writer-in-residence at the University of Kentucky, she lives in Kentucky.
Review Quotes: "Mason is a full-fledged master of the short story...her [stories are] a treasure."--Anne Tyler, "The New Republic""Finely crafted tales that manage to invest inarticulate, small-town lives with dignity and intimations of meaning."--Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times""A gentle touch does not preclude exceptionally sharp observation; in her deft, witty and unobrusive way Mason is amazingly acute."--Alice Adams, "Chicago Sun-Times"