Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country by Chavisa Woods

Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country by Chavisa Woods

Nominated for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction

"Darkly funny and brilliantly human, urgently fantastical and implacably realistic. This is one of the best short story collections I've read in years. It should be required reading for anyone who's trying to understand America in 2017." --Paul La Farge, author of The Night Ocean
 
The eight stories in Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country paint a vivid image of people living on the fringes in America, people who don't do what you might expect them to. Not stories of triumph over adversity, but something completely other. 

Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods's characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong--often the places where they were born. In "Zombie," a coming-of-age story like no other, two young girls find friendship with a mysterious woman in the local cemetery. "Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street" describes a lesbian couple trying to repair their relationship by dropping acid at a Mensa party. In "A New Mohawk," a man in romantic pursuit of a female political activist becomes inadvertently much more familiar with the Palestine/Israel conflict than anyone would have thought possible. And in the title story, Woods brings us into the mind of a queer goth teenager who faces ostracism from her small-town evangelical church.

In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

Brooklyn-based writer Chavisa Woods is the author of the short story collection Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country (Seven Stories Press, 2017), about which Booklist, in a starred review, wrote, This book is tight, intelligent, and important, and sure to secure Woods a seat in the pantheon of critical 21st century voices; the novel The Albino Album (Seven Stories Press, 2013); and the story collection Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind (Fly by Night Press, 2009). Woods was the recipient of the 2014 Cobalt Prize for fiction and was a finalist in 2009, 2014, and 2018 for the Lambda Literary Award for fiction. In 2018 Woods was the recipient of the Kathy Acker Award for Writing and the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette. Woods has appeared as a featured author at such notable venues as the Whitney Museum of American Art, City Lights Bookstore, Town Hall Seattle, the Brecht Forum, the Cervantes Institute, and St. Mark's Poetry Project.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781609807450
ISBN 10	1609807456
Title	Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country
Author	Chavisa Woods
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Year published	2017-05-16
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.