Short Story Collection Review   

 

Eyesores

By Eric Shade

University of Georgia Press, 2003

Hardcover $24.95 (205 pages)

ISBN: 0-8203-2432-9

 

Windfall, Pennsylvania is the setting for the eleven interrelated stories comprising Eric Shade's debut collection, Eyesores. Reminiscent of Brad Watson's Last Days of the Dog Men and Tom Franklin's Poachers, Shade has created a town bypassed by the interstate. The coal mining jobs are gone, the drive-in theater is being torn down, and unease abounds. The men who once understood the rules and pleasures of small town life -- playing high school football, enjoying a beer at the bar, and coming home to a two-paycheck household -- are also beginning to sense they've been bypassed too. 

Eric Shade was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania and currently lives in Houston, Texas. His stories have appeared in Indiana Review, Greensboro Review, and River Styx. 

Eyesores is the winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. The winners are selected through an annual competition and has brought the work of many fine young writers to the attention of readers and reviewers. Recipients of the Flannery O'Connor Award include: Mary Hood, Molly Giles, Melissa Pritchard, Antonya Nelson, Ha Jin, and many others. 

In October 1998, the Southern Book Critics Circle honored the University of Georgia Press with a Distinguished Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to literary publishing, with special recognition for the Flannery O'Connor Award.

 

Pam Kingsbury

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