Sunday, June 26, 2011

Rec. #151: Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes


What: Merrill Feitell's collection of stories won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. The slim volume contains eight perfect little glimpses into different lives, including realizations made during a bike-a-thon through New York, an impromptu dumpling party, and a sudden storm in Texas.

Comparable to: Less bitter than Erika Krouse, more melancholy than Elizabeth Crane.

Representative quote: "It is Thanksgiving , the great day of dinner, of Dockers and dress shirts and marshmallow-sweetened squash. This year we are forgoing our standard slow graze on the home front to spend the day with my sister and her boyfriend's family, meeting them for the first time --- on this, a National Holiday."

You might not like it if: The 123 pages go too quickly.

How to get it: It's in print and also Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: More contemporary short fiction --- Julie Hecht's Happy Trails to You (Rec. #6), Ellen Gilchrist's Nora Jane: A Life in Stories (Rec. #25), Adrienne Sharp's White Swan, Black Swan (Rec. #53), Elizabeth Crane's When the Messenger Is Hot (Rec. #73), and Erika Krouse's Come Up and See Me Sometime (Rec. #122).

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