The Boxford Stories: A Short Story Collection - Softcover

Carson, Kristen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0990724832 ISBN 13: 9780990724834

Publisher: Ribbon Wand Press, 2014

Synopsis

Welcome to the world of the Runyons and the Feldsteds, two Mormon families in 1970s Maryland. Far from their Western American roots, they cling to each other like exiles clutching a precious box of topsoil from the old country.

In The Boxford Stories you will meet Ada Runyon who always turns to Ruthalin Feldsted when she needs an ear—sharing her deepest confidences, her everyday musings, and her bits of horrified gossip. Yet Ada dies inside whenever Ruthalin’s country-cousin manners poke out in public.

Latham Runyon, a history professor, and Erval Feldsted, a hospital engineer, bond every Sunday night over gooey desserts and vigorous religious discussion, a game their children call Stump the Rabbi. Underneath their balding heads and graying temples, each man desperately seeks a sign that God would choose him as a buddy.

The Feldsted and Runyon children, running breathlessly through each other’s houses and backyards, have long considered each other substitute cousins. However, Ginni Runyon plots to change herself from the girl next door to the girl Marc Feldsted can’t live without.

And when Boxford’s Mormons mix with the rest of the town, everybody could use a field guide to the other species.

Laugh, cry, and shake your head with the Runyons and Feldsteds as they make their way through the decade that brought us leisure suits and urban decay.

About this title

About the Author

Kristen Carson was born in Idaho, the caboose baby in a family of six girls. She studied at Brigham Young University. Hearing tales of how green the grass was elsewhere, she pledged to move east of the 100th Meridian. Even though she's never lived in the #1 place on her list (Lexington, Kentucky--have you seen those beautiful bluegrass hills?!), she enjoyed her years in Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania. She currently lives in Indiana. She and her husband are the parents of four adult children. She loves her two cats for their affection, their paranoia and their sense of entitlement. She takes long walks wherever she goes, because she thinks the best way to see the world is at 3 miles an hour. She loves cooking. All the chopping, stirring and inhaling lend the perfect capstone to her day. Kristen is also an avid reader. No doubt she won't live long enough to finish all the books on her list. Her favorite authors are Herman Wouk, Diana Gabaldon and Tom Wolfe. Check out her blog at kristencarsonauthor.com, where she writes about whatever she's reading and cooking.

Review

In this debut collection of short stories, Carson explores the daily lives, loves and frustrations of two tight-knit Mormon families in 1970s Maryland. . . Standouts include "Gypsy Holiday," in which Ada's anxiety over family friends not coming to Thanksgiving devolves into a stark admission of her loneliness and inability to connect with outsiders; "A Little Five-Minute Thrown-Together Something," which lays bare the squirming insecurities of teenage crushes; and "Flirting Lessons," which sees Ada's teenage daughter, Ginni, taking a cross-country road trip with two friends that leads to panic when one goes missing. These stories are unexpected in their subtlety as they explore the reality of what it means to be Mormon-and human. --Kirkus Reviews "'Atta Boy" vaults us into a narrative in which time is as much the subject as the characters. In an almost Faulknerian way, Carson finds the pulse of ambition and uses that tick to reveal the inner voices that can haunt us all, if allowed. We should be looking to the eternities, of course, but in the meantime, we have so many other things to worry us onward into the night, or at least until the next priesthood interview. This story excels at showing the ironies of those worries as opposed the unvarnished truths about ourselves. --Association for Mormon Letters

Edition details

• Publisher: Ribbon Wand Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0990724832
• ISBN 13: 9780990724834
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 330