The Wrecking Yard - Pinckney Benedict

THE FIRST BRITISH publication for a prodigiously talented 26-year-old from West Virginia, this extraordinary new collection of short stories confirms his admirers' belief in his promise. As he did in his first book, Town Smokes, Pinckney Benedict illuminates, with unforgettable imagery and sly humour, the darkest corners of the American soul. From the rockabilly rhythms of the first story ('Getting Over Arnette') with its bowling-alley romance, to the haunting strangeness of the last ('Odom'), Benedict's singular voice and observant eye capture the rough-edged contours and personalities of rural America, shaped as they are by poverty, cruelty, and an odd compassion. A traveller finds a mad menagerie in the back of a diner ('Horton's Ape'); a young man views the aftermath of a fatal car crash ('The Wrecking Yard'); a murderer is cornered in a carnival and put on trial by the victim's father ('The Electric Girl') and in the towering 'Washman' Benedict's themes take on near-mythic intensity in a savage, terrifying hunt for a deformed kidnapper.
The Wrecking Yard stands in its own right as a testament to the violence of love and the love of violence, and as one of the most compelling collections of stories to have come out of America in years.
Hard cover

Condition: Good