The Dry Well (Stories) - Hardcover

Marlin Barton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1929490070 ISBN 13: 9781929490073

Publisher: Frederic C Beil, 2001

Synopsis

This collection brings together the author's twelve best stories, all set in the same small Southern community in Alabama. The world of these stories covers five generations of one particular family named Anderson, and the range in time is from 1865 to the present. These stories are about grace in the lives of ordinary men and women. The plot lines are infinitely various, but so delicate that they have eluded some of the subtlest writers. As was once said about the writing of Peter Taylor, a master of the short story, Marlin Barton's writing is as clear as a fine pane of glass. Correctly described as unobtrusive, this style is so simple and powerful that he seems scarcely to be exercising his craft. This is the perfect definition of a virtuoso. As readers will find, there is virtuosity aplenty in The Dry Well.

About this title

About the Author:

A graduate of the University of Alabama and Wichita State University, Marlin Barton lives in Montgomery, Alabama. He taught creative writing at Huntingdon College and is now assistant director of the Writing Our Stories project, a program for juvenile offenders. He was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama Council on the Arts, and also has received the Andrew Lytle Prize and an O. Henry Award for his short stories. Marlin Barton has been named the first recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Short Fiction by an Alabama author.

From Booklist:

Barton's eerie and poignant short stories span several generations as they focus on significant events in the lives of inhabitants of a small Southern town. Jeremiah reminisces about working in the local cotton fields. Mr. Conrad, who owns the town's tiny general store, consults with the local voodoo woman. Stuck in a wheelchair, Aiken Reed is obsessed with his family's descent into poverty. Other characters include Father Meyers, the new priest; Lydia Sayre, who has just lost her first child; and Harlan, whose only desire in life is to play basketball. The townspeople are bound together by their losses--of love, sanity, money, family, trust, freedom, and innocence. Touching issues of poverty, prejudice, infidelity, and incest, Barton writes with grace and compassion. Each story is an epiphany, presenting a gestalt of events that leads the characters to reinterpret their entire lives in a single moment. Bonnie Johnston
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About this edition

• Publisher: Frederic C Beil
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1929490070
• ISBN 13: 9781929490073
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224