Title: Velvet Shipwrecks
Description: 'Tim Wenzell&#x2019;s Velvet Shipwrecks is a collection of short stories characterized by the unexpected detour, the stops along a narrative way that take the reader into a marginal America, where surprises happen and are cast in a dark humor that paradoxically lights our way.  Consider  ́Check Point, ́ where the entire Wolrath family is arrested for drunkenness&#x2014;including a sixteen-year-old son  ́was fed sips of wine in the middle of the fair grounds for five hours by his mother ́ and  ́Annie, barely ten, ́ who kicked the officer&#x2019;s shins as the father, sober, attempted to pass his sobriety test.  Consider, too, the dark  ́Downstream, ́ and the funeral of the narrator&#x2019;s brother&#x2014;shot in the head by a man wearing steel-toed boots. Or consider  ́Y, ́ the story of a misread ultrasound and a father who  ́jumped the gun, went out to the Wal-Mart and decorated his soon-to-be-baby-boy&#x2019;s nursery with baseballs and footballs. ́ Of course,  ́The fetus...emerged a girl, ́ and  ́Ted&#x2019;s dream of coaching a son was dashed. ́ Indeed, Wenzell&#x2019;s stories are moody and uneasy, but they are simultaneously delightful.'--Amazon.com description.
Subjects: American Short stories