02890nam 2200445 450 991081630360332120220523153942.00-8143-4589-1(CKB)4100000007267911(OCoLC)1078741333(MdBmJHUP)muse68265(MiAaPQ)EBC5841433(Au-PeEL)EBL5841433(EXLCZ)99410000000726791120220523d2018 uy 0engur|||||||nn|ntxtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierStiff /Steve HughesDetroit, Michigan :Wayne State University Press,[2018]©20181 online resource (1 PDF (173 pages).)Made in Michigan writers series0-8143-4588-3 Stiff: Stories by Steve Hughes -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Epigraph -- Contents -- Lucky Fucking Day -- Only Wilma -- I Am Still Learning About the World -- Ripening -- Her Walls Not Mine -- When Drink, Drugs, and Floor Polish Steal Your Youth and Trash Your Woman -- Dexter's Song -- Part Plant, Part Animal, Part Insect -- New Phase -- The Perfect Song -- Forest Parker, Poet Laureate of Lumpkin Street -- Wood for Rhonda -- Bullets for Charlene -- God, That Kimchi! -- I Don't Feel Sorry For Mrs. Miller -- Ted and His Heartbeat -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author.With a hearty helping of Detroit grit, the stories in Stiff pay homage to a city turned upside down by economic abandonment. Steve Hughes pushes the boundaries of realism, creating situations that seem odd and otherworldly. In his Detroit, witches cast spells to improve their husbands, chickens grow from seeds, and house painters with anger management issues proclaim themselves poet laureates. The characters in Stiff are all searching for something in each other--a certain wholeness or understanding, a place to rest and call home. Hughes writes with great empathy about people who are struggling with their lives. In "Ripening," a man and woman in an illicit affair witness their genitals leaving their bodies for a rendezvous. In "Dexter's Song," a drug-addicted saxophone player meets a bored suburban woman who gives him her ex-boyfriend's sax, which unleashes a series of disasters but the instrument is so fine, so perfect, that when he holds it to his lips he can do no wrong. Readers of contemporary fiction will enjoy this inventive and evocative collection of stories.Made in Michigan writers series.Short stories, AmericanShort stories, American.813.6Hughes Steve(Zine author),611924MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910816303603321Stiff4007255UNINA