Keynote
A new collection of stories set in the West from “one of the most gifted and versatile of contemporary writers” (NPR)
Book Title
Half an Inch of Water
Subtitle
Stories
Cover Image
- “What is most enchanting about [Half an Inch of Water] is the rumor of magic constantly on the periphery, the inexplicable that emerges from and then retreats back into the haze of the desert.”—The New York Times Book Review
Body
Percival Everett’s long-awaited new collection of stories, his first since 2004’s Damned If I Do, finds him traversing the West with characteristic restlessness. A deaf Native American girl wanders off into the desert and is found untouched in a den of rattlesnakes. A young boy copes with the death of his sister by angling for an unnaturally large trout in the creek where she drowned. An old woman rides her horse into a mountain snowstorm and sees a beloved dog that had died years before.
For the plainspoken men and women of these stories—fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians—small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. A harmless comment about how to ride a horse changes the course of a relationship, a snakebite gives rise to hallucinations, and the hunt for a missing man reveals his uncanny resemblance to an actor. Half an Inch of Water tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Percival Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.
For the plainspoken men and women of these stories—fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians—small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. A harmless comment about how to ride a horse changes the course of a relationship, a snakebite gives rise to hallucinations, and the hunt for a missing man reveals his uncanny resemblance to an actor. Half an Inch of Water tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Percival Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.
List Price
$17.00
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About the Author
Credit: Michael Avedon
Praise
- Named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR, Electric Literature, Flavorwire, Kansas City Star, and Minnesota Public Radio
- “Agile. . . . Everett’s spare prose both anchors the supernatural flourishes and binds the collection together, as constant as the landscape.”—The New Yorker
- “Half an Inch of Water plunges into the contemporary American West with quiet confidence and a shimmer of magic.”—Los Angeles Times
- “Everett displays a intellectual dexterity and formal versatility that few contemporary American writers can match.”—Chicago Tribune
