The Source of Trouble

by Debra Monroe

Overview

Winner of The Flannery O'Connor Award, this critically acclaimed debut collection features ten stories set in the plains of the Midwest and the honky-tonks of the South.

Witty and sly, exciting and powerful, these are stories about people who understand their own complicity belatedly, but never too late. Illuminated in these affecting, self-revealing stories is the measure of hope and healing that lies in every heart and coupling, no matter the trespass.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780671897161
Publisher:	Touchstone
Publication date:	02/01/1995
Series:	Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction Series
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Debra Monroe is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist. She has written six books, including two story collections, two novels, and two memoirs

Editorial Reviews

Trouble is usually a woman in the 10 stories that comprise this year's winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. One memorable character, Candy Fae Caine (``A Pious Wish''), analyzes her own situation: ``The source of trouble . . . the incident I zero down to as having begun this irrevocable, claptrap mess was making love to Dew Cooper when the urge for him wasn't irresistible, as it sometimes has been in my past, a hurricane whirling toward an abyss.'' Her situation neatly mirrors that of other characters, women and their men who live in the plains towns of the Midwest, or frequent bars and roadhouses in the South, and behave like the faithless couplers of country-western songs. In ``My Sister Had Seven Husbands,'' Nadine's life in a trailer park, with ever-increasing numbers of children and a philandering spouse, seems to her relatively bearable (``Orderly things are wild on the inside'') when contrasted with that of her many-times-married sister. Though the voices in these terse but witty tales tend to sound alike, one is diverted by these self-revealing characters who unfold their make-do philosophies of life. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Winner of the 1989 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, this collection of 10 stories is compelling and powerful. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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