Typical: Stories - Softcover

Powell, Padgett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1480464198 ISBN 13: 9781480464193

Publisher: Open Road Media, 2014

Synopsis

Twenty-three surreal fictions—stories, character assassinations, and mini-travelogues—from one of the most heralded writers of the American South
There are many things that repulse “Dr. Ordinary.” “Kansas” is notable for its distinct lack of farmland. “Wayne’s Fate” is most unfortunate, not merely for Wayne but for the roofer pal who stands by watching his good buddy lose his head. “Miss Resignation” simply cannot win at Bingo. And there is nothing “Typical” about the unemployed steelworker and self-described “piece of crud” who strides through this collection’s title story.
Welcome to the world of Padgett Powell, one of the most original American literary voices in recent memory. Typical is both a bravura demonstration of Powell’s passion for words, and an offbeat, perceptive view of contemporary life—an enthralling work by a one-of-a-kind wordsmith, and a redefinition of what short fiction can be. 

About this title

About the Author

Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, including The Interrogative Mood and You & Me. His novel Edisto was a finalist for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Little Star, and the Paris Review, and he is the recipient of the Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Whiting Writers’ Award. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida. 

From Kirkus Reviews

This first collection by the author of Edisto and A Woman Named Drown is an odd and arresting mix of full-length stories and lots of little pieces--none of them conventional by any means, and all of them typical of Powell's goofy, southern-inflected lust for language. Powell's snippets include a number of fractured profiles of strange people and places gone weird. There are: ``Dr. Ordinary'' and his litany of the things he finds odious; ``General Rancidity,'' hated all over his military base because ``only the truly rancid themselves could run with him''; ``Mr. Nefarious,'' who smiles about his girlfriend and a fancy outdoor bench; ``Mr. Desultory,'' who gives in to regression because he cannot do things in succession; and ``Miss Resignation,'' who loses at Bingo so much she decides to smoke the cards. Powell clearly agrees with the notion voiced here that ``character is nothing but warts.'' Place fares poorly too: ``Kansas'' is defined by the absence of farming; ``Texas'' is a list of things done and some know-nothing aphorisms; ``South Carolina'' finds the pickup-driving narrator molesting a belle at a fancy cotillion; and ``Florida'' is a drunk lament about what used to be. In Powell's mordant and absurd world, you watch a flood (``Flood'') and a body floats into your arms; you work as a roofer and your buddy decapitates himself in a fall on the job (``Wayne's Fate''); you ramble and drink in the woods, and someone offers perversion (``Proposition''). Faulknerian style and subject come in for some direct ribbing. ``Wait'' sidetracks a rococo turn about a bulldog and a corncob with some plain talk; and ``Lebove and Son,'' a postscript to The Hamlet, considers the consequences of literary revelation. Not quite so academic, but metafictional in their own bizarre way, are ``Mr. Irony,'' a tale of ``low-affect living edged with self-deprecating irony''; and ``Mr. Irony Renounces Irony,'' the confessions of a style abuser. The much- reprinted title story is the narrative of a true underground man, an admitted ``piece of crud'' and unemployed steelworker who thinks he's just ``Typical.'' Lyrically intense and full of the surreal juxtapositions you find in the flotsam of floodwaters: stories at once edgy and exuberant. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1480464198
• ISBN 13: 9781480464193
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220