Shelter Half - Softcover

Bly, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0977945863 ISBN 13: 9780977945863

Publisher: Holy Cow! Press, 2008

Synopsis

"The real clue to this mystery lies in its title, referring to the half-tent an American infantryman once carried with him to the battlefield, and buttoned to someone else's half for mutual protection: a covert metaphor provisioned with foregiveness and trust."--O, The Oprah Magazine

“Does loving-kindness to friends, family, town, and church cover your complicity in . . . distant wrongs? Carol Bly . . . is fully responsive to the evils done in our name and with our tacit consent.”—Tobias Wolff , in the introduction to My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories

“What the reader will remember is Carol Bly’s spiritual and moral intelligence as glimpsed through the valor of these vibrant characters.”—Tess Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review

A young woman’s body lay undisturbed for a week in mid-November.

So begins Shelter Half, a novel about a few people in a northern Minnesota town. Some of them—the town cop, the doctor, and a young couple in love—are smart enough to recognize cruelty that comes at them from huge organizations far outside the town limits. They are not chicken. They don’t duck. If their nation and their world look grisly, they still do what they can for love and justice. They look out for one another. In the end, a retired US Brigadier General brings them a surprise about one of their best-loved townspeople.

Carol Bly (1930-2007) is the author of Letters from the Country, The Tomcat’s Wife, My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories, and Changing the Bully Who Rules the World. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories; several Pushcart Collections, including the twenty-five-year anniversary edition; The New Yorker; Ploughshares; Glimmer Train (May 2008); and other journals. She lived in St. Paul and Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota. Shelter Half is Carol Bly's first and only published novel.

About this title

About the Author

Carol Bly is winner of the 2001 Minnesota Humanities Award for Literature, the University of Minnesota's Edelstein-Keller Distinguished Minnesota Author in 1998-99, and the Minnesota Women's Press Favorite Woman Author for 2000. She has an honorary degree from Northland College.

From Booklist

Bly, who died last year, is best known for her insightful short stories centered around the varied characters of a small Minnesota town. This compelling debut novel continues that theme, exposing the interwoven lives of the flawed, mostly likable inhabitants of tiny St. Fursey. The book opens with the discovery of a young woman’s body by strawberry farmer Dieter Stolz, a 78-year-old widower. In quick succession, Bly introduces the well-meaning police chief, a mostly unemployed wife beater, and a car dealer with just-diagnosed cancer. Then there’s Imogene, a social worker and the daughter of the town’s wealthiest couple; her father, whose sole job is to “whiten” the questionable tactics of large corporations; and Vern, Imogene’s love interest, who quits his job at one such company, enraged at their unethical animal research. No character is skimmed over lightly, for Bly uncannily delves into the inner thoughts, desires, aspirations, and weaknesses of each of this somewhat motley cast. The murder inquiry gives way to the emotional turmoil rumbling just beneath the surface, all delivered with Bly’s signature satirical humor. --Deborah Donovan

Edition details

• Publisher: Holy Cow! Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0977945863
• ISBN 13: 9780977945863
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245