Allegheny Front (Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction)
Matthew Neill Null
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 1941411258
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Set in the author's homeland of West Virginia, this panoramic collection of stories traces the people and animals who live in precarious balance in the mountains of Appalachia over a span of two hundred years, in a disappearing rural world. With omniscient narration, rich detail, and lyrical prose, Matthew Neill Null brings his landscape and characters vividly to life.
"Allegheny Front has few sentimental trappings. . . . Men's stubbornness is a rock face, in these intelligent and unpretentious stories, their anger a crown fire, their occasional tenderness a rill. . . . It remains at a distance from judgment, at a remove from easy definitions, unspooling a lucid and often painful history of appetite, exploitation, and bereavement."—Lydia Millet, from the introduction
"Rich in history, speech, incident, flora, fauna, vernacular, geology, politics—Matthew Neill Null's work is dazzling. . . . If anything ever happened in the state of West Virginia, Null knows the long and short of it, and will make its story sing."—Salvatore Scibona
Matthew Neill Null is the author of the novel Honey from the Lion (Lookout Books). A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, winner of the PEN/O. Henry Award and the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, his short fiction has appeared in the Oxford American, Ploughshares, the Mississippi Review, American Short Fiction, Ecotone, and elsewhere. He divides his time between West Virginia and Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he coordinates the writing fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center.
soothed his ungloved hand. Then he heard a familiar cry. The smile seeped from his face. Once again, the mate banked against the ridgeline, gliding back in his direction, gliding effortlessly, like she could do it forever. NATURAL RESOURCES BEARS HAD BEEN SEEN ON THE road. Black bears, young males thrown out the den, nipped at by their mothers, romping over the green drop cloth of spring. They tore up the last worm fences in that county—those relics of another life, 1860, 1870—and raked the
touch the girl, not to graze a swimming leg. The rock is pleasant and hot. She loves being naked in the sun. If Gary would leave. Maybe he’ll volunteer for Elkins. She tries not to think of sex. She hopes Michael doesn’t ask about her father. They ease in over rounded, mossy stones and find the water pleasantly cool, a touch under sixty. Shadows dart to the edge of the pool. Kathryn soaps herself, then hands it over. She wonders if Shelly would have washed otherwise. If Nedermeyer would have
come back,” Gary promises. Kathryn disagrees. Downstream of here, the resort sloughs too much sediment into the water. It smothers fish eggs in the nest, even in minimal amounts. The only thing that could fix this place is another orogeny, new mountains, glaciation—a cataclysm. But she says nothing. Nedermeyer croons, “Just give it time, give it time. And this one here wants to leave!” He winks at Kathryn. Her eyes go glassy with embarrassment. Michael flips an omelet expertly. When it’s
caulks shined. “Go on,” said the clerk, who had work to do. “They go on your feet.” Henry Gorby lifted a riverman’s boots. Had to weigh ten pounds. He felt his heart murmur. The clerk turned away to deal. Back outside, Henry chucked his own boots away. This was out of character; the Gorbys never tossed shoes, they let them degrade until they slid off midstride. At run’s end, flush with money, he would purchase new ones, he would buy many things. Compared to Ezekiel’s boots, the scuffed town
it up to the lantern. Cartwright’s stomach coiled. “Lost it baiting a jaw-trap. Hand slipped.” He looked Cartwright in the eye and said it bluntly, without threat; he hadn’t lived in a civilized town yet. He hadn’t learned shame. “We put too much oil to it,” the other said. “Got it slickery.” “Easy mistake to make,” Cartwright said, relieved. “Do you cure them or bounty them?” “Depends if the fur traders or the government men are coming around,” the ten-fingered boy said. “Neighbors send