Unsung Heroes of American Industry - Softcover

Poirier, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747568081 ISBN 13: 9780747568087

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2004

Synopsis

Worm farms, pearl-button making, chicken processing, pornography, and beauty pageantry. These quirky cottage industries hold the potential to make fortunes, though its more likely that theyll lead to bankruptcy and shattered dreams. And here, Mark Jude Poirier introduces the mists and visionaries who embody the aspirationsand frequently the lunacyof the North American entrepreneur.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Jude Poirier is a graduate of Georgetown, Stanford, the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The author of Naked Pueblo and Goats, he recently was awarded a Chesterfield screenwriting fellowship with Paramount Pictures. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and Archer City, Texas.

From Publishers Weekly

Poirier (Goats) takes his readers for a walk on the wild side of working life in this collection, a brief but wide-ranging affair consisting of five stories about some bizarre cottage industries. "Buttons" starts things off with the odd but noteworthy history of the notorious Badde family (the "Royal Family of Pearl Button Making") as they move from the button industry to a series of successful but off-the-wall ventures in egg farming and marketing. Farming is also a major theme in "Worms," which describes the mismatched but entertaining marriage between a worm farmer and a profile reporter that ends in tragedy. "Gators" concerns a beautiful backwoods Louisiana girl who escapes poverty to make a name for herself in fashion by designing colorful alligator shoes. "Pageantry" moves deftly into the world of appearances as Poirier uses a sharp protagonist to outline the cutthroat competition in low-level beauty pageants as contestants try to work their way up the ladder, while "A Note on the Type" relates both a quirky young man's obsession with a deli worker and his family's success developing typefaces. Like David Sedaris, Poirier is a sharp, funny writer who has plenty to say about the lurid, tabloid side of modern American life, and while most of his characters are rather limited he never lets his curious story lines drift into excess or affectation. Readers who like to explore the stranger aspects of human behavior will find plenty of material here. Author tour.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0747568081
• ISBN 13: 9780747568087
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192