Short Story Collection Review    

 

Ate It Anyway

by Ed Allen

University of Georgia Press, 2003

Hardcover, $24.95 (192 pages)

ISBN: 0-8203-2558-9

The characters in Ed Allen's Ate It Anyway are quirky, sad, and darkly humorous. The seventeen stories included celebrate mischief, middle age, and memories.  

In "Ralph Goes to Mexico," Lydia makes life-changing decisions based on making sure her cat, Ralph, sees as much of the world as possible before succumbing to feline leukemia. She hasn't decided whether he should be mounted or turned into a hat after he dies, but Lydia is certain he needs to add Mexico to the list of foreign countries Ralph has seen. 

Ed Allen worked as a taxi driver, butcher, and salesman before becoming an associate professor of English at the University of South Dakota. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Gentleman's Quarterly, and Story and has been included in the anthologies, New Stories from the South, 1997, and The Best American Short Stories, 1990. 

Allen's novel Mustang Sally has been adapted into a forthcoming film, Easy Six.  Ate it Anyway is a winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.

Pam Kingsbury

Southern Scribe Reviews

 

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