Our Love Could Light the World

by Anne Leigh Parrish

Overview

The Dugans are a scrappy, dysfunctional family living in upstate New York that's getting along okay until the mother walks out one day, leaving five undisciplined kids and an alcoholic, unemployed husband behind. In these twelve stories, we find out how the Dugan clan learns to get along without her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938314445
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	05/23/2013
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Anne Leigh Parrish’s debut story collection, All The Roads That Lead From Home, won the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards silver medal for best short story fiction. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Clackamas Literary Review, The Pinch, American Short Fiction, Storyglossia, PANK, Prime Number, Bluestem, Crab Orchard Review, Literary Orphans, Spartan, and r.kv.r.y., among other publications. She is the fiction editor for Eclectica Magazine. She lives in Seattle. To learn more, visit her at www.anneleighparrish.com.

Table of Contents

Contents

Our Love Could Light The World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

And To The Ones Left Behind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Just Another Lost Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Trouble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

A Simple Theory of Heartache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Into My Loving Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Maggie's Dare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

The Concept of Kindness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

The Sorrow of The Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

The Ordeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

The Caregiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Lavinia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Editorial Reviews

Parrish weaves linked, darkly humorous tales of aging, death, love and alcoholism using the gothic tropes of Southern literary fiction.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Parrish is in possession of such precise prose, devilish wit, and big-hearted compassion that I couldn’t help but be drawn into the hijinks and mishaps of the Dugan family. I found myself one moment laughing out loud, and the next, overcome with emotion. I’d compare these linked stories to those of George Saunders, Elizabeth Strout, or perhaps even Flannery O’Connor, if Parrish’s voice weren’t so clearly and wonderfully her own.”
—Ross McMeekin, Editor, Spartan

“Parrish knows the subtle movements of families in turmoil and the flailing attempts at love and peace. She takes you inside the homes of your neighbors, or of people like them, and she captures in fi ne detail their private, crippling agonies and their tiny, saving grace notes. Reading Our Love Could Light the World is like holding up a mirror—you see yourself, and then, if you look closely, you also see things you might otherwise have missed.”
—Craig Lancaster, author of 600 Hours of Edward

From the Publisher