Good Rockin' Tonight: A Collection of Short Stories

Nine stories deal with an Elvis impresonator, an aspiring actor, a hang glider, a drifter with big plans, a struggling family, the sixties, and divorce

Tony Award-winning playwright Hauptman ( Big River ) serves up diverse slices of Americana in his first collection of short stories, poignantly and seamlessly joining the painful with the comic. Although one or two pieces rely on almost stock images of American Gothicthe title story, for example, concerns a Texan named Bubba who aspires to be the world's best Elvis Presley impersonatora capable imagination and a gift for authentic detail inform the writing. In "Hands Across America," a woman who is elated that the national news has singled out her small town for its support of the project to aid the hungry is baffled to see a bag lady, to her "the sort of thing that could only happen in New York City." A three-year-old child of separated parents in "Moon Walking" explains to her adoring father the appeal of her new best friend: "She doesn't have a daddy either." The spectacular final tale, "Sierra Wave," uses a man's adventures in hang gliding as a theater for the complex processes of passion and betrayal, conquest and surrender. The wide range of subjects and settingsCalifornia in the '60s, Arizona in the '50s, contemporary New York and Texasand their full-bodied treatments will attract a broad audience.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Award-winning playwright Hauptman proves himself adept at the short story as well in this first collection of nine original stories, remarkable for unerring dialogue and sparse prose. He bestows believability on a diverse assortment of characters caught up in unfortunate circumstanceslike the Elvis impersonator of the title story, who becomes too much like the King. Other funny/sad tales feature fortune hunters in a Wyoming boom town, a family attending the "Hands Across America" fundraiser, a tornado-tracker, and a geologist seeking oil near a Navajo reservation. Recommended. Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.