In this Book
- Of This New World
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: University of Iowa Press
- Series: Iowa Short Fiction Award
summary
Of This New World offers a menagerie of utopias: real, imagined, and lost. Starting with the Garden of Eden and ending in a Mars colony, the stories wrestle with conflicts of idealism and practicality, communal ambition and individual kink. Stories jump between genres—from historical fiction to science fiction, realism to fabulism—but all ask that fundamental human question: is paradise really so impossible?
Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in The Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants. The neglected daughter of a floundering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her un-groovy grandmother. Haunted by her years at a collegiate idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May Alcott’s famous family for help. And in the final story, a former drug addict chases a second chance at life in a government-sponsored space population program. An unmissable debut, the collection charts the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope.
Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in The Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants. The neglected daughter of a floundering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her un-groovy grandmother. Haunted by her years at a collegiate idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May Alcott’s famous family for help. And in the final story, a former drug addict chases a second chance at life in a government-sponsored space population program. An unmissable debut, the collection charts the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xii
- After the Beginning
- pp. 1-3
- Shark Fishing
- pp. 4-26
- VFW Post 1492
- pp. 40-49
- Syndication
- pp. 61-64
- Flowers for Prisoners
- pp. 77-84
- Americans on Mars!
- pp. 110-126
Additional Information
ISBN
9781609384449
Related ISBN(s)
9781609384432
MARC Record
OCLC
956541646
Pages
140
Launched on MUSE
2016-09-12
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2016