“Escape” by Deborah Willis

This story reads like an outtake from a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, or a story I can imagine being told to me in a bar, like the one I sat in while my now dead uncle played black jack with a man whose car had broken down, conveniently for my uncle, right outside the road side casino we were holed up in. They played cards until the man waiting for the tow truck ran out of money.

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“The Weather” by Deborah Willis

This might be the finest short story I’ve read since Richard Ford’s ‘Rock Springs’, the lead story in the collection of the same name. I often go back and read the last paragraph of that story, and once I met Ford and I told him how much I liked that story especially those last sentences he proceeded to repeat back to me word for word the section I was referring to.

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Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

You see, one day Tabitha came home and her father was gone. His plays went on to be produced to great acclaim, and like a burst of steam, he’s gone. Tabitha finds ways to navigate her way through life, grow up, and even remind us in flashback what her mother was like, how she ran the house, or the Elvis Presley bust that sits in the closet. The only downside to this story is really the upside, it’s the first story of many, but I wanted to see what else would happen to Tabitha, but I suspect if you get a chance to read this collection, you can imagine it for yourself.

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JR’s Picks

I’m a big fan of the good review, and I think it sells books, but you actually have to read something from time to time, just so you don’t sound like you’re piling on to a prevailing attitude. There is a good chance that these books will sell in your store. I can tell you that the book 03, just from the review in The New Yorker, from James Wood, will certainly sell, not only because it’s affordable, but the reviewer carries some serious weight, (How Fiction Works).

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New Stories From The South edited by Amy Hempel

Algonquin’s 25th Anniversary Edition of their great New Stories from the South anthology hit the shelves last week, this time edited by none other than Amy Hempel, who knows a thing or two about stories, her geographical origins notwithstanding. Her Collected Stories was one of my favorite books of 2007, and still gets pulled off of the shelf from time to time.

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