| Vendor | |
|---|---|
|
Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus |
| Original language | |
| English | |
THE PERIPATETIC COFFIN
And Other Stories
A wildly inventive debut collection in the tradition of Jim Shephard and Kevin Wilson: strange, imaginative and refreshingly original stories that explore how the world we think we know can unexpectedly reveal its darker contours.
Riotously inventive and lushly drawn, the stories in Ethan Rutherford's The Peripatetic Coffin bring into sharp focus both reality as we know it and as it could be. Lighting out into territories recognizable and foreign, The Peripatetic Coffin navigates landscapes and historical moments wildly divergent from each other, moving with brio between settings as seemingly familiar as a summer camp - with an unusually high rate of camper fatality - to a futuristic whaling expedition set against the backdrop of scarcity and environmental cataclysm, in stories that vibrate with peril and intensity.
Whether introducing us to the beleaguered and unlucky crew of the first Confederate submarine as they mount a doomed mission during the waning days of the Civil War or two boys whose obsession with skateboarding and monster movies masks the more mundane but very real violence in their own life, Rutherford charts the course of unforgettable characters who are confronted with, and battle against, the limitations of their lives.
Alternately funny, menacing, and deeply empathetic (and often all three at once) these are stories that stand alone, but are linked as a whole by their attention to the surface of things and what lurks beneath it, and to the tension between the visible and the unseen.
Ethan Rutherford's fiction has appeared in One Story, Ploughshares and American Short Fiction, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2009 (ed. Alice Sebold). His stories have received Special Mention in the 2009 and 2010 Pushcart Prize anthologies, and he has received grants from the McKnight Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota, and currently lives in Minneapolis where he is a guitarist for the band Pennyroyal.
"Oh how I love these stories! Ethan Rutherford can slay you with humor and buoy you within the midst of tragedy. His range is amazing. Every story is 100% Grade A storytelling. I bow down to "The Peripatetic Coffin." - Alice Sebold
Riotously inventive and lushly drawn, the stories in Ethan Rutherford's The Peripatetic Coffin bring into sharp focus both reality as we know it and as it could be. Lighting out into territories recognizable and foreign, The Peripatetic Coffin navigates landscapes and historical moments wildly divergent from each other, moving with brio between settings as seemingly familiar as a summer camp - with an unusually high rate of camper fatality - to a futuristic whaling expedition set against the backdrop of scarcity and environmental cataclysm, in stories that vibrate with peril and intensity.
Whether introducing us to the beleaguered and unlucky crew of the first Confederate submarine as they mount a doomed mission during the waning days of the Civil War or two boys whose obsession with skateboarding and monster movies masks the more mundane but very real violence in their own life, Rutherford charts the course of unforgettable characters who are confronted with, and battle against, the limitations of their lives.
Alternately funny, menacing, and deeply empathetic (and often all three at once) these are stories that stand alone, but are linked as a whole by their attention to the surface of things and what lurks beneath it, and to the tension between the visible and the unseen.
Ethan Rutherford's fiction has appeared in One Story, Ploughshares and American Short Fiction, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2009 (ed. Alice Sebold). His stories have received Special Mention in the 2009 and 2010 Pushcart Prize anthologies, and he has received grants from the McKnight Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota, and currently lives in Minneapolis where he is a guitarist for the band Pennyroyal.
"Oh how I love these stories! Ethan Rutherford can slay you with humor and buoy you within the midst of tragedy. His range is amazing. Every story is 100% Grade A storytelling. I bow down to "The Peripatetic Coffin." - Alice Sebold
| Available products |
|---|
|
Book
Published 2013-05-01 by Ecco Press |