The sound of holding your breath
Subtitle: stories
By: Natalie Sypolt
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: West Virginia University Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 156
ISBN-13: 9781946684578
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Fiction
Work titles: Short stories
Description: The residents of The Sound of Holding Your Breath could be neighbors, sharing the same familiar landscapes of twenty-first-century Appalachia--lake and forest, bridge and church, cemetery and garden, diner and hair salon. They could be your neighbors--average, workaday, each struggling with secrets and losses, entrenched in navigating the complex requirements of family in all its forms. Yet tragedy and violence challenge these unassuming lives: A teenage boy is drawn to his sister's husband, an EMT searching the lake for a body. A brother, a family, and a community fail to confront the implications of a missing girl. A pregnant widow spends Thanksgiving with her deceased husband's family. Siblings grapple with the death of their sister-in-law at the hands of their brother. And in the title story, the shame of rape ruptures more than a decade later. Accidents and deaths, cons and cover-ups, abuse and returning veterans--Natalie Sypolt's characters wrestle with who they are during the most trying situations of their lives.
Table of contents: title: Diving --; title: Flaming Jesus --; title: Ghosts --; title: Get up, June --; title: At the lake --; title: Home visit --; title: Handlers --; title: Love, off to the side --; title: Wanting baby --; title: Lettuce --; title: My brothers and me --; title: What would be saved --; title: The sound of holding your breath --; title: Stalking the white deer.