We're All In This Together: A Novella and Stories - Softcover

King, Owen

3.48

635 ratings by Goodreads

9780571227259: We're All In This Together: A Novella and Stories

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571227252 ISBN 13: 9780571227259

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2007

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

In his wry novella, Owen King conjures an eccentric North-Eastern American family whose personal strife mirrors the political turmoil of our time. George is the teenaged son of a single mother, and the only grandson of a family of union organisers in Maine. George's grandfather Henry, obsessed with the outcome of the 2000 election, has planted a giant billboard of homage to Al Gore in his front yard that he suspects has been defaced by the paperboy, now a sworn enemy. Meanwhile, George's mother is about to marry Dr Vic, who besides being possess by an almost royal obliviousness, may even have voted for George W Bush. George's efforts to aid his endearingly cranky grandfather and to undermine his mother's marriage reflect on a central question for our times: How will we fight All together, or all aloneA heartwarming, funny and hugely inventive tale from a young writer set to become one of the most exciting talents on the Faber list.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Owen King grew up in Bangor, Maine. He is a graduate of Vassar College and holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and his stories have appeared in Book Magazine and the Bellingham Review. He has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and is a recipient of the John Gardner Award for Short Fiction. He currently resides in Brooklyn.

From Publishers Weekly:

From the 26-year-old scion of literary giant Stephen King comes a compelling, imaginative debut collection of four short stories both creepy and heartfelt, plus a compassionate novella about a 15-year-old son of a single mother. Set in Maine around the 2000 election, the title novella captures the teenage narrator's anger over his mother's impending marriage to Dr. Vic, while his family, led by a union organizer grandfather, seethes over Bush's election. George lays siege to his mother's relationship and helps his grandfather build a sniper's nest from which to attack the paperboy who defaces the old man's "Al Gore is the Real President" sign. Freaks and weirdos—external symptoms of his protagonists' inner struggles—people King's shorter stories, which strive to balance the lurid with a reach for emotional truth. In "Wonders," about a baseball player who takes his pregnant girlfriend to a Coney Island circus freak abortionist, the macabre and the heartfelt feel discordant, and the story ends with unearned violence. But in "Frozen Animals," King achieves a surreal blend of gory, vivid description of unanesthetized dental surgery layered with the drug-addicted dentist's intermittent memories of a happier past. This original collection heralds the arrival of the next generation.
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.