Floodmarkers

The residents of a North Carolina town weather Hurricane Hugo, and other kinds of storms, in this “smart and funny” collection of linked stories (Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish).

The days leading up to the impending disaster are not at all unusual—no portents, no signs of impending calamity. Bryce works his night shift at the hot dog factory, Isaac drives the bus to school, Evelyn attends a funeral. But when the electricity fails in the middle of the night on September 21, 1989, it marks the moment when everything will change: Hugo has arrived.

The storm builds, the wind whips by faster and faster, and interpersonal dramas, grudges, and rivalries are dredged up along with the flotsam and debris. Meanwhile, flood markers, painted red, track the height of the water from past rainstorms, and as the creek level rises higher than ever before, so do the emotions of the townspeople. Floodmarkers has us look bravely at the eye of the storm, as acclaimed author Nic Brown shows us that human nature can stir up a spectacular tempest all its own.

“Stories starring lovable slackers and beautiful failures . . . on my List of Favorite Books, right after The Moviegoer and just before Cathedral. Smart and funny and sexy.” —Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish

“Reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio in both its structure and its tragi–comedic view of a small town . . . his empathy and insight into the human condition is breathtaking.” —Jonathan Ames, author of You Were Never Really Here

Nic Brown is the author of the novel Doubles and the story collection Floodmarkers, which was selected as an Editor's Choice by The New York Times Book Review. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Harvard Review, Glimmer Train, and Epoch, among many other publications. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Columbia University, he has been the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi and an assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado. Currently he is an assistant professor of English at Clemson University.