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182 pp, 1987
$20.00 hardcover 0-87745-164-8
Winner of the 1986 Iowa Short Fiction Award
"This collection introduces a writer of unusual promise. Refusing the easy ironies and glassy surface of most contemporary fiction, Russell Working's stories enact our uncertain and restless longing for freedom and transcendence—resurrection—against backgrounds and circumstances startling in their vivid actuality. Raw, abrasive, urgent, these stories jangle the nerves and haunt the memory."—Tobias Wolff, author of In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and The Night in Question
"[Working] has an amazing ability to draw the reader immediately into the world about which he is writing....It is the quiet intensity of the writing that is so impressive."—New York Times Book Review
The stories in this accomplished collection range in setting from the West Indies to the Pacific Northwest, presenting characters that include a photojournalist in Haiti introduced to the islanders' belief in zombiism, an ex-policeman working in a paper mill, a hospital patient on New Year's Day, and a teenager practicing martial arts. Their stories are at times grotesque and desperate but always engrossing.
What sets these stories apart from other contemporary fiction is their skilled and evocative sense of place—Working creates atmospheres that almost become separate characters with their own critical significance and influence. Convincing in his portrayal of a harsh, often violent side of life, Working jars us and demands attention.
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