A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders--strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original--now back in print as part of Ecco's "Art of the Story" Series, and with a new introduction from the author

Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider--a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in "Blowing Up On the Spot," a story singled out by Ann Patchett for Ploughshares, a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted.

Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.

--Memphis Commercial Appeal

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Ecco Press
Published: 03/31/2009
ISBN: 9780061579028
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.30w x 0.70d
Award: Alex Awards - Winner

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 12/01/2008 pg. 25
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2009
New York Times Book Review 04/05/2009 pg. 5
Booklist 04/15/2009 pg. 24
New York Times Book Review 04/12/2009 pg. 22
Booklist Ed Choice Adu Bk YA's 01/01/2010 pg. 10

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 136785 / Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
Reading Level: 6.1 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 10