Fox Tooth Heart
John McManus
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 194141110X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"A phenomenal talent blazing up suddenly on the horizon. . . . precise, brilliant language that evokes without ever having to explain. . . . His transcendent vision gives us devastating glimpses."—Elle
"John McManus writes visceral prose that explodes within the tight boundaries of the short story. These narratives possess a graceful internal logic and feature a wide range of gritty characters rebelling against an indifferent and often brutal world."—Bookforum
"The stories in John McManus's Born on a Train are powered by radiant prose."—Vanity Fair
John McManus's long awaited short story collection encompasses the geographic limits of America, from trailers hidden in deep Southern woods to an Arkansas ranch converted into an elephant refuge. His lost-soul characters reel precariously between common anxiety and drug-enhanced paranoia, sober reality and fearsome hallucination. These nine masterpieces of twisted humor and pathos re-establish McManus as one of the most bracing voices of our time.
John McManus is the author of the novel Bitter Milk and the short story collections Born on a Train and Stop Breakin Down, all published by Picador. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Oxford American, The Literary Review, Harvard Review, and many other places. He is the youngest-ever recipient of the Whiting Award.
Heath was talking over him: “Hold your computer up and spin it around.” “It’s a desktop computer.” “Point it out your window. Is that the projects?” “This is Branson. There’s no projects.” “You know how science works; every experiment needs a control group and a white-trash welfare group. We hypothesized your existence weeks ago.” Carl had always been different from the people around him, but not because of money. At his school most kids had been poor. He hadn’t felt ashamed. He tried
born. Clone X to exceed historical Jefferson’s capabilities. Clone Y to prove capable of same as original. Clone Z to fail. If Heath and the rest kept up their tepid investigation, they would decipher a scheme to use settings of disparate privilege to pursue a trite inquiry into nurture and nature. Unplugging his modem, Carl forsook that quest for lack of significance. There were more intriguing questions. His injuries to the Hemings family alone had had Jefferson stoking the Reign of Terror.
under arrest, but hang tight.” Hunter sat on a log and flipped through old issues of Bike. After a while a helicopter flew overhead and vanished below the canyon rim. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. Staring down at the glossy trail photos, he focused on keeping Cody’s obituary out of next month’s issue, occupying himself with that hope or prayer until Buck ambled over to ask what he’d been doing in Charlie’s Bar. “I drove past and saw it.” “So you’re twenty-one?” “Thought maybe
flowed down the bank, or was she crying? She seemed to be sliding away with the water. “Our mom wanted to get rid of us.” “You were twins?” he asked, astonished. “No, we were four years apart.” As the sirens approached, Allen saw into her question and understood what she meant: because of his mind, combined with his driving, his search for some failed namesake, his mom should have gotten rid of him. “I don’t even know your last name,” he called to Eulalia as they dragged him away, hoping his
hand, I went and found my father snoring in a trundle bed. It was a relief that he was alone. After all, what would I have said to Clara? Hide your elephants? I would have broken her heart, I thought, wandering out into a windy, cold day. Gracie stood by the fence, eating some clover. I walked down to her. “We need to get you out of here,” I said. What’s it to you? she seemed to ask, raising her head. “You’re in a lot of danger.” So are all elephants, she said. My dad cheats people and