Little America is for anyone who has ever considered just getting in the car and driving away. Here the ribbon of Western road is a metaphor for the heart's strange longings, providing hard, sometimes hilarious, lessons on the improbability of escape, the possibility of salvation, and the elusiveness of self-knowledge. In "Yukon River," young lovers with a seedy past risk everything to be purified in the Alaska outback; they encounter instead the ruthless opportunism and alluring corruption of oil boom Fairbanks. In ...
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Little America is for anyone who has ever considered just getting in the car and driving away. Here the ribbon of Western road is a metaphor for the heart's strange longings, providing hard, sometimes hilarious, lessons on the improbability of escape, the possibility of salvation, and the elusiveness of self-knowledge. In "Yukon River," young lovers with a seedy past risk everything to be purified in the Alaska outback; they encounter instead the ruthless opportunism and alluring corruption of oil boom Fairbanks. In "Suitcase," a modern Heart of Darkness, the road meanders from California down through impoverished Mexico and then sinks into a deadly Guatemalan jungle where the idealism of an earlier era gently rots. "Roll" starts in a truck on a cliff top in Idaho, one wheel off the edge. "Little America" travels with grifters on the lam who choke up at the sight of an Oregon wheat field at sunrise; later, in Wyoming, they are made solemn by the grandeur of the world's biggest truck stop and pause to ponder: Why would anyone willingly stay in one place? With deadpan humor, perfect pitch voice, and keen love of place, Simmons's stories illuminate the abiding American desire to "light out"--if not necessarily for something better, at least for something new.
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Add this copy of Little America (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction) to cart. $7.75, very good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Ohio State University Press.
Add this copy of Little America (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction) to cart. $10.40, very good condition, Sold by Vashon Island Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Vashon, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Ohio State University Press.
Add this copy of Little America Format: Paperback to cart. $26.30, new condition, Sold by indoo rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Avenel, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Ohio State University Press.
Add this copy of Little America (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction) to cart. $36.66, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Ohio State University Press.
Add this copy of Little America (Ohio State Univ Prize in Short Fiction) to cart. $93.97, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Ohio State University Press.
