Let’s Do (Volume 3) (Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction) - Softcover

Meacham, Rebecca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1574411853 ISBN 13: 9781574411850

Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 2004

Synopsis

Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, 2004.

In the nine stories of Let’s Do, various calamities strike ordinary Midwesterners, who cope with a mixture of good intentions and ineptitude. Balancing humor with painful clarity, author Rebecca Meacham pulls readers into the lives of characters who struggle with—and more often against—change.

About this title

About the Author:

An Ohio native, Rebecca Meacham received her MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University and her doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. Her fiction has appeared in numerous journals, and in 2002, was awarded the Chelsea Award for Short Fiction and the Indiana Review Fiction Prize. She lives with her husband in Wisconsin, where she is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

From Publishers Weekly:

Meacham explores the familiar terrain of love and loss in her debut story collection, but her distinctive voice charges these nine stories with an intriguing combination of sardonic humor and emotional depth. In the sharply funny "Trim and Notions," a newly pregnant teacher tries to find her balance after the baby's father leaves her and she negotiates the process of introducing her new addition to her erratic, flighty sister and straitlaced mother. In the much soberer "Weights and Measures," Meacham frames the harrowing story of a teenage girl's descent into bulimia after her parent's separation as a series of steps in a macabre, ironic how-to guide. Breakups and impending splits are frequent plot elements: in "The Assignment," a photographer's athletic girlfriend asks him to replicate the circumstances of her attack after a near-mugging, and the request brings his penchant for jealousy and stalking to the surface; in "Good Fences," a struggling suburban couple moves to the country and the husband faces unlikely temptation in the form of a destitute but comely neighbor. The balance between dialogue and exposition remains impeccable throughout, and Meacham's well-drawn, quirky characters help add definition to the spare narrative lines. Several of the stories dealing with loss fall into a similar pattern, but this is a strong debut from a writer who has just begun to scratch the surface of her talent.
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About this edition

• Publisher: University of North Texas Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1574411853
• ISBN 13: 9781574411850
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192