Short stories

Book SynopsisYou move away, but spend whole days thinking of your hometown. Up the hill, past the gravel pit, an Elvis impersonator is leaning on his parked car. On Memorial Day, you put flowers on your great grandmother's grave and spend an afternoon wondering about her life. In your sister's first apartment, there are terrible figures drawn on the walls with Sharpies. You take a figure drawing class and the model, a skinny blonde woman, opens her mail and cries while you draw her. You learn that your great grandmother was a widow, that her town was a community of widows, a whole street renamed in their honor: La Strada Delle Vedove, the Street of Widows.In Cassie Fancher's debut collection of stories, small town American women navigate grief and loss. Piecing together images from her own life, Cassie creates stories that prioritize not the trauma itself but the relationships these women find in order to survive. This collection, and the characters within, consider home from afar, from close up, from the past and the present.

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Book SynopsisIn White Carnations, the Syrian fiction writer Musa Rahum Abbas, revered in the Arab world, makes his English language debut with 101 tales that sketch life inside and outside Syria during the revolution that began in 2011. The prose in White Carnations is etched, distilled, essential. It recalls curious fables from distant foreign lands. Delicious vignettes and anecdotes are followed with the most absurd and horrific headlines of the Syrian revolution. Other tales document the furious efforts of non-poor Syrians who have escaped for a few weeks or forever. They are burrowing into superficially normal lives in the modern world. Yet their lives are not normal, because they are utterly unable to release the memories of pain and cruelty that they carry with them, like an emotional passport. Cune Press is presenting White Carnations as a companion to The Dusk Visitor. The scholar, translator, and creative writer Musa Al-Halool is the co-translator of White Carnations along with the delightful academic Sanna Dhahir. Note that Musa Al-Halool is the author of The Dusk Visitor. Both books are “light reading” on a serious subject. They explore through the tool of short fiction the fascist style that can slowly and decisively overtake democratic governments. (Yes, Syrian democracy emerged when the French left in 1946. After several years of free elections, an era of coup and counter-coup mixed with democratic maneuvering held sway as the Ba’ath Party gained strength. In 1963, the Ba’ath ousted Nazim Qudsi, considered the last democratically elected president of Syria). Whereas The Dusk Visitor’s commentary applies to several security state governments in North Africa and the Middle East, White Carnations focuses on the eruption of violence and displacement within a single country, Syria, and follows its expats as they struggle in exile. Both books hold lessons for readers who value an open civil society, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and democratic elections as a way to transfer power within democratic institutions.Trade Review“Sometimes vividly, often subtly, these short sketches convey to the reader the pain and the horror of the fighting in Syria and its effect on the Syrian people.” Arthur G. Goldschmidt, Pennsylvania State University -- Arthur G. Goldschmidt

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Book Synopsis"Raw, dark, and surprisingly funny...there’s so much precision and verve in these stories; I was captivated the entire way through." - Carmen Maria MachadoThe misfits and mavericks in this award-winning story collection shuffle their feet to a soundtrack of rumble strips and twangy AM radio. Here, the underdog is king and the outsiders are storming the gates. A plucky daughter defends her father by swinging a paint can like a mace, teenage renegades sow terror on the highway by throwing cups of root beer, and an out-of-work lawyer steamrolls his way through a recreational sports league. For these loners and screwballs, the path to redemption is often twisted, heartfelt, and humorous.These stories will take you from the karaoke bar to the natural foods co-op, from a city-league broomball game to a broken-down camper in the woods. In lush and lucid prose, Holt explores emotional landscapes that reflect the vast terrain of America's heartland. Woven throughout is a series of flash-fiction parables, which narrate a journey both exotic and existential. So pull up a seat among this motley crew of barflies, road workers, and art school dropouts, and you might later find yourself retelling their stories as your own.Trade Review"Raw, dark, and surprisingly funny...there's so much precision and verve in these stories; I was captivated the entire way through." Carmen Maria Machado"The unpredictable stories of Golden Heart Parade hurtle through startling surprises and sharp turns...we're often caught just where moments of desperation could lead to bad decisions, to laughter, or both." Peter Rock, Author of The Night Swimmers and My Abandonment (adapted to film as Leave No Trace)"Like Richard Ford in Rock Springs, Holt tells the stories of people with hard lives, who keep fighting even when the odds are against them. His characters are always compelling, and their stories are rich and crazy and off the rails." Mary Grimm, author of Left to Themselves and Stealing Time" Golden Heart Parade introduces characters in mutiny against themselves and the status quo. These stories are comic and heartbreaking." Elizabeth McKenzie , author of MacGregor Tells the World , and an editor for Chicago Quarterly Review and Catamaran Literary Review"The narrators in Golden Heart Parade are my favorite kind of floundering misfitsthe underemployed, wanderers and dreamers, wait-and- see-ers. A tender and surprising collection with sharp prose and even sharper dialogue that I'll revisit again and again." Mary Miller, author of Biloxi , Always Happy Hour , The Last Days of California , and Big World"In lush and lucid prose, Golden Heart Parade navigates emotional landscapes that reflect the vast terrain of America's Heartland." Atomic Books" Golden Heart Parade is searing, funny, surprising. The stories these characters tell about themselvesand re-tell about themselveschange in compelling and unexpected ways." Lee Conell, author of Subcortical and The Party Upstairs"This strangely moving debut collection from Holt offers up a motley mix of broken characters in stories about America's heartland. . . . Unexpected humor abounds . . . cutting through the raw emotions, minimalist narrative, and snappy dialogue. Holt's gaze falls on grit and grime, but he writes with plenty of heart." Publishers Weekly

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