Description: The public image of Alaska for those who live elsewhere tends to be bound up with the outdoors. But while that's not necessarily false, it's a far from complete picture. This collection of stories shows us what we're missing: set in Alaska's cities and suburbs, homes and back roads, cars and kitchens and bedrooms, it offers not tales of adventures, but quietly powerful psychological dramas, introspective explorations of the private triumphs and failures of personal life played out in an extraordinary place.
Jean Anderson delicately balances the lyrical and the experimental to tell the stories of hardworking Alaskans--teachers, laborers, dental hygienists, artists--worrying over fairness and equity and meaning, falling in and out of love, and pondering elusive, long-dreamed-of goals. Powered by a rich empathy, Human Being Songs shows us life in Alaska as it's actually lived today--its successes, failures, and moments of transcendent beauty.Brief description:
Jean Anderson is the author of In Extremis and Other Alaskan Stories and coeditor of Inroads, an anthology of regional Alaska fiction.
Review Quotes: "Though these stories are uniquely Alaskan, they're not 'trying' to be. That is to say, there's no forced artifice trying to capture the 'real' Alaskan experience by focusing only on fishing, homesteading, the sublime beauty of nature, or any of the other big Alaskan Symbols(TM) that one usually expects. Instead, the genuine article shines through in the details, in smoke-choked summers where the snowpiles still linger and bitter cold winters observed from the warmth of a car. It quietly adds depth to the thoughts and lives of real people struggling with their mundane lives, allowing the reader to feel like they're getting a brief glimpse into the lives of their hypothetical neighbors."-- "Daily News-Miner"