One Last Good Time

by Michael Kardos

Overview

"Michael Kardos's soulful stories take place in that hard-luck corner of New Jersey where rock and roll dreams crash into blue-collar reality. One Last Good Time is a remarkable debut collection, full of stories that are funny and melancholy at the same time." - Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher. "One Last Good Time is one of the sharpest, funniest, and most compassionate debuts you will ever have the good fortune to read. Without a doubt, Michael Kardos is a truly gifted writer and a vibrant new voice in American letters." - Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935708100
Publisher:	Press 53
Publication date:	01/07/2011
Pages:	202
Sales rank:	931,473
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	1 - 17 Years

About the Author

Michael Kardos is the author of the story collection One Last Good Time. His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Pleiades, Prism International, and many other magazines and anthologies, and were cited as notable stories in the 2009 and 2010 editions of Best American Short Stories. He lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University and edits the literary journal Jabberwock Review.

Editorial Reviews

In an impressive debut collection, surprise outcomes and absurdist touches inform the misadventures of adults and adolescents living the blue-collar life on the New Jersey shore.

In interlinked stories that combine the poignant coming-of-age humor of Thomas Rogers' Jerry Engels novels and the weird wrinkles of George Saunders' stories, Kardos presents a gallery of lovable losers struggling with jobs, relationships and fading dreams in the fictional town of Breakneck Beach. The grown-ups include a school-bus driver sleeping with his wife's sister who ill-fatedly kidnaps kids on a long drive to nowhere, and a high-school music teacher just short of retirement who self-destructs when his superiors force him to lower the standards of his orchestra. The teens include a mysterious girl from a town of 204 where births and deaths are arranged so they don't have to change the number on road signs, and a boy who outrages his father, a corrections officer, by imitating the faded movie-theater organist who gives florid performances in their home in the guise of lessons. The less-successful stories involve the ashes of another music teacher and a female ghost seeking vengeance. Kardos is such an original, offbeat, revealing talent that he has no need to indulge in such gimmicks. Among his other achievements is to leave lasting impressions of such attractions as the Castle of Horrors, a pier side attraction where a teen's crush on his attractive boss is requited, Richie's Famous Organ Store, where a music teacher moonlights, and the Wawa food mart, where three kids get to know each other in the middle of the night during a power outage.

Affecting stories about New Jersey oddballs trying to overcome difficult circumstances.

Kirkus Reviews