Lock and Load: Armed Fiction

by Deirdra McAfee (Editor), BettyJoyce Nash (Editor)

Overview

Nothing says America louder than a gun. As the short stories assembled here demonstrate, firearms loom as large in our imaginations as in the news. In this unforgettable anthology, the common theme, and the essential object, is the gun.

These striking stories, from such famous authors as Annie Proulx, Bonnie Jo Campbell, and John Edgar Wideman, plus a talented group of newcomers, range widely—from tender to violent, from chilling to hilarious. Tales of love, war, coming of age, and revenge, they occur in landscapes familiar or ordinary, distant or dystopian, and reflect Americans' particular obsession with, and paranoia about, guns. This masterful and thought-provoking collection moves beyond the polarized rhetoric surrounding firearms to spark genuine discussion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826359087
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	10/01/2017
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	922,608
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Deirdra McAfee is a fiction writer and editor living in Richmond, Virginia.


BettyJoyce Nash is a fiction writer and journalist living in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Deirdra McAfee and BettyJoyce Nash

A Lonely Coast
Annie Proulx
Não Faz Mal
E. G. Willy
Lady Bird
Daniel Cox
Café Americana
Gale Walden
Tommy
John Edgar Wideman
Action Adventure
John P. Loonam
Six Cents
Mary D. Edwards
The Handgun
Rick DeMarinis
Revealed
Mari Alschuler
Grand Bizarro Day
Patricia Schultheis
The Weight
Elaine LaMattina
The Accomplished Son
Jim Tomlinson
The Shield of the Norns
Deirdra McAfee
An Act of Mercy
Sara Kay Rupnik
Pearl in a Pocket
Nicole Louise Reid
Family Reunion
Bonnie Jo Campbell
Laser Vision
BettyJoyce Nash
Tuesday Night at the Shop and Shoot
Joann Smith
Mercy
Pinckney Benedict

Acknowledgments
Contributors

Editorial Reviews

"Complex depictions of the aloneness of the ´rugged individual' with a destructive weapon at hand."—Kevin McIlvoy, author of The Complete History of New Mexico: Stories

"Our finest writers parse out the nuances of this complicated and divisive issue in a way that only great literature can."—Sheryl Monks, author of Monsters in Appalachia: Stories?

"This is a powerful, challenging, and often exquisite response to our lethally dangerous gun culture. These stories reveal our complicated relationship to weapons, and offer chilling evidence of the way violence affects our contemporary consciousness."—Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta: A Novel

"An unflinching look at a hard subject. America is the land of the armed. The impressive chorus of voices here proves the pen is mightier than the gun."—Jason Ockert, author of Wasp Box

"A brilliant anthology. Every story—sad, sweet, hilarious, thoughtful, or satirical—turns up a gun. Clearly, a loaded gun is inspirational."—Kelly Cherry, author of Temporium: Before the Beginning to After the End

"Lock and Load offers everything we want from our fiction: emotional insight, quality storytelling, distinctive prose. Not to mention it's a real shoot-'em-up of a read!"—David Philip Mullins, author of Greetings from Below

"Though we're talking about cowboys, Portuguese gang members, returned veterans, and abandoned women, one more character's always on the page: the gun."—Cully Perlman, author of The Losses: A Novel

"Trigger warning: in these spectacular stories many guns will go off. Chekhov, I'm certain, would approve."—Daniel Mueller, author of How Animals Mate: Short Stories

From the Publisher