Story Hour & Other Stories

by Robert Flanagan

Overview

10 fine stories by this seasoned fiction writer, all set in the urban Heartlands of America....

"In Story Hour, Robert Flanagan tells masterfully rendered, hard-edged tales of the tough lives of men and women struggling to get by on the edges of America's heartland. Not a word rings false in this unsparingly honest collection. These stories bring to mind those wonderful, spare Springsteen songs about characters who make the wrong decisions and pay the price."

~Ronald K. Fried, author of MY FATHER'S FIGHTER

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933964775
Publisher:	Bottom Dog Press
Publication date:	01/01/2014
Pages:	124
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.35(d)

About the Author

Robert Flanagan was born in Toledo, Ohio, where he once worked as a dishwasher, night watchman, and janitor. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, and graduated from the Universities of Toledo and Chicago. For three decades he taught at Ohio Wesleyan University and is a published poet (Reply to an Eviction Notice), produced playwright (Jupus Redeye), as well as a short story writer (Naked to Naked Goes and Loving Power) and a novelist. His forthcoming novel Champions is set in Toledo s hard luck world of boxers and comics. A lifelong boxing fan, he earned his detached retinas sparring in local gyms. He lives with his wife Katy in Delaware, Ohio.

Read an Excerpt

STORY HOUR

On his way out of the library s community room

amid the stream of parents and grandparents, women,mostly, with children hanging on them or racing ahead with their books to the check-out counter, Virgel was asked by Miss Julie, the children s librarian, if she might speak with him for a moment. He nodded and cleared the aisle to stand between her desk and the tropical fish tank. Children were not allowed to touch

the tank, but it was a real job to keep them from doing it. Quentin and Noel always wanted to tap on the glass to get the fishies attention.

The Jamaican lady from story hour, Aurelia, gave

him a smile as she passed by with her granddaughter Yolanda in tow. Virgel could not recall ever having met anyone with teeth as white as hers. Like those little marshmallows his grandsons loved in their hot chocolate.

Miss Julie was a tall, stringy woman, young, early

thirties, smiling and friendly, who wore snug jeans and fluffy white blouses and, surprisingly, bore a blue tattoo of a snake on her right forearm. Surprising to Virgel, anyway, but then he was an old fart and out of touch with current fashion. Although as his wife Emma would have said, bless her heart, there never was a time when he d been in fashion. Overalls at home, washable khakis and plaid flannel shirts for town: that was his wardrobe for as long as she had known him. Thirty-eight years, seven months, nine days. Passed more than two years now, Emma was. God forgive him, but he wished he had been the first to go.

to go.

Editorial Reviews

NAKED TO NAKED GOES

Studs Terkel: Robert Flanagan with these powerful

stories joins Tobias Wolff as one of my very favorite contemporary writers.

Tim O Brien: What a terrific group of stories drama in the very best sense, all of it activated by clean, tight powerful prose. A jewel that will be shining for years to come.

In a voice as lusty as Whitman s, select and just as Hemingway s, yet a voice unmistakably his own, Robert Flanagan tells these fine stories. Flanagan s subjects are Midwesterners. He treats them, their strivings and struggles, their disappointed or fulfilled desires, with humor and compassion meanwhile shining over them a mysterious light of grace and love. There is violence here, and courage and caring, the intense sorrows and joys, the victories and defeats that define the human condition. These stories will entertain you and enrich your understanding of life in the American Heartland. If you read them carefully, they may enlarge your soul. Annabel Thomas, author of Stone Mountain Man: A Novel

From the Publisher