{"product_id":"big-lonesome-isbn-9780544769809","title":"Big Lonesome","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eAn inventive, ranging debut story collection from a writer hailed by Charles Yu as \"a stunningly original voice—warm, bleak, dark, ecstatic, full of silences and power and life\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Reinventing a great American tradition through an absurdist, discerning eye, Joseph Scapellato uses these twenty-five stories to conjure worlds, themes, and characters who are at once unquestionably familiar and undeniably strange. \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e navigates through the American West—from the Old West to the modern-day West to the Midwest, from cowboys to mythical creatures to everything in between—exploring place, myth, masculinity, and what it means to be whole or to be broken.  \u003cbr\u003eThough he works in the tradition of George Saunders and Patrick deWitt—writing subversive, surreal, and affecting stories that unveil the surprising inner lives of ordinary people and the mythic dimensions of our everyday lives—\"Scapellato’s \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome \u003c\/em\u003eis unlike anything else you’ve ever read\" (Robert Boswell). | \u003cp\u003e\"Vividly recasting many Western archetypes, Scapellato's \u003cstrong\u003einventive, hallucinatory prose dazzles\u003c\/strong\u003e...Normally quotidian encounters become \u003cstrong\u003eepic\u003c\/strong\u003e in Scapellato's worlds, and the sentences [...] exquisitely fashion routine encounters into much more...A timely dose of his absurdism could prove an antivenom to our problematic times.\"—\u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review \u003c\/em\u003e   \"Rich with \u003cstrong\u003erefined poeticism and imagination\u003c\/strong\u003e...\u003cstrong\u003eOriginal and gripping\u003c\/strong\u003e, with several exceptional entries towards the end that reveal Scapellato as \u003cstrong\u003ea masterful storyteller.\u003c\/strong\u003e..\u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e [is] a noteworthy collection cumulatively, [and its best stories] highlight the promise of Scapellato’s next project.\"—PopMatters      \"Often \u003cstrong\u003eamusing, thoughtful and poetic\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cem\u003e Big Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is a \u003cstrong\u003eweird and wildly inventive\u003c\/strong\u003e collection of 25 uniquely imagined short stories focused on the mythologies of the American West and the archetypal nomadic characters who roam the vast, pockmarked, barren landscape...\u003cstrong\u003eAffecting and utterly unique\u003c\/strong\u003e, Scapellato’s absurd reimagining of the roughed-up, Stetson-wearing cowboy who once inhabited the American West will startle and surprise those accustomed to Western fiction. \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is \u003cstrong\u003ean impressive debut story collection by a canny, poetically talented storyteller\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"—\u003cem\u003eLancashire Evening Post\u003c\/em\u003e   \"The stories in the first section update the Western tall tale as \u003cstrong\u003epost-modern trickster narrative\u003c\/strong\u003e. The spirit of Sut Lovingood, George Washington Harris’s Old Southwestern version on Huck Finn, which inspired Twain and Faulkner, returns to disrupt rather than instruct. Whereas Sut concocted revenge pranks to satirize preachers, politicians, and other targets of regional scorn, Scapellato’s unnamed cowboys raise their pistols to all before locking eyes on themselves...Scapellato’s gift is to convey the collapse of his characters with the sparest language and thrift of detail...[He] \u003cstrong\u003edefies genre expectation\u003c\/strong\u003e...\u003cstrong\u003eThe trajectory of redemption suggests Flannery O’Connor at her best\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"—\u003cem\u003eBrooklyn Rail \u003c\/em\u003e   \"Scapellato's first collection of short fiction means to bust the mythologies of the American West. In these 25 stories, Scapellato moves from the allegorical to the (almost) natural, traversing the territory with a fluid grace...Scapellato's debut is \u003cstrong\u003eunpredictable, witty, and self-aware while remaining heartfelt in the most unexpected ways\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"—\u003cem\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e   \"Scapellato’s refreshing stories engage at every point and are capped off with perfect endings. Scapellato is \u003cstrong\u003ean exceptional surrealist\u003c\/strong\u003e, and he seems to have a firm handle on his own exuberance and quirkiness, his characters reminiscent of familiar archetypes but served with a twist. His subjects never wander far from cowboys, cowgirls, and the myths of the cinematic West. His short stories have a lean trajectory and economy. ..This debut collection is \u003cstrong\u003ebracing and delightful\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e   \"These 25 stories range from the mythic and bizarre to the modern and incisively realistic...\u003cstrong\u003egenre-blending\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"—\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c\/em\u003e   \"Through a careful give and take between familiar imagery and surrealist flourishes, Joseph Scapellato’s debut collection \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is a subversive love letter to The Wild West...[with] a Saunders-like sense of compassion and empathy.\"—Various Small Flames   \"Joseph Scapellato’s collection is a lot of things: \u003cstrong\u003erisky, honest, and romantic\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome \u003c\/em\u003ewill turn your idea of the Western genre on its head, creating new thoughts, before turning again, and again. Cowboys and Indians and horses and the dust of the Old West and the New. And the weird. \u003cem\u003eEspecially\u003c\/em\u003e the weird...We have a very vivid image of what the West was, and is, and seeing Scapellato tear down the walls of that reality was \u003cstrong\u003enothing short of beautiful\u003c\/strong\u003e. Many of the stories in this collection resemble scenes of those old Westerns like \u003cem\u003eThe Searchers\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eMy Darling Clementine\u003c\/em\u003e, and countless others we thought about in our televised dreams. It’s \u003cstrong\u003ehard to stop reading\u003c\/strong\u003e all of the stories due to their \u003cstrong\u003emagnificently crafted hooks\u003c\/strong\u003e of first sentences. Scapellato wastes no time, there’s a sense of urgency to get us to the heart of every story. In a collection solely dedicated to the old frontier, Scapellato impresses by drawing us into this world again and again... All of these stories hit different nerves...It would be easy to make some kind of \u003cem\u003eWestworld\u003c\/em\u003e reference here, as it is fresh in the collective mind. But I’d argue that \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e does it better—it has a pulse here...\u003cstrong\u003eScapellato brings the best of the genre and pumps Hulk inspired gamma radiation into every line\u003c\/strong\u003e...\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome \u003c\/em\u003eis something we should read with open eyes and a fresh imagination.\u003c\/strong\u003e It might just get us through the day. I sure hope it can.\"—Heavy Feather Review   \"A stunningly original voice—warm, bleak, dark, ecstatic, full of silences and power and life. This collection will stay with me for good, and I'll be eagerly awaiting Scapellato's next book.\"—Charles Yu, author of \u003cem\u003eSorry Please Thank You\u003c\/em\u003e      “In his brilliant, heartbreaking debut story collection, \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e, Joseph Scapellato offers up the only kind of cowboy I hunger for: mythic and flawed and nameless and timeless and horribly, unsettlingly modern. These stories are fantastic.”—Manuel Gonzales, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Regional Office is Under Attack!\u003c\/em\u003e   \"The range of virtuosity that Joseph Scapellato displays in \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is simply astonishing. You want dazzling wordplay? It’s here. You want the Old West and the New West, and tales that make myths, break myths, and mock myths? They’re here. You want straightforward, realistic fiction in the form of a heart-breaking death-of-love story? Here. A desert race-for-life adventure? Here. So cinch your saddle tight and keep a firm hold on the reins—\u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is a hell of a ride.\"—Larry Watson, author of \u003cem\u003eMontana 1948\u003c\/em\u003e   “If this is what the future sounds like, we have something to celebrate, after all. Joseph Scapellato’s \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome \u003c\/em\u003eis quick and sharp and funny and unlike anything else you’ve ever read.” —Robert Boswell, author of \u003cem\u003eTumbledown\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eMystery Ride, Crooked Hearts,\u003c\/em\u003e \u0026amp; \u003cem\u003eThe Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards\u003c\/em\u003e     “Joseph Scapellato's \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome\u003c\/em\u003e is an accomplished debut, a collection of tall tales and campfire stories that create a Wild West unlike any other. With a voice like Barry Hannah channeling Larry McMurtry, Scapellato has updated the cowboy—one of the great American protagonists—into a newly complex, audacious, and utterly contemporary character.” —Matt Bell, author of \u003cem\u003eIn the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods\u003c\/em\u003e   \"The stories in Joseph Scapellato’s \u003cem\u003eBig Lonesome \u003c\/em\u003eare terrifically funny and haunting accounts of people shedding their self-mythologizing ways. On this open range of wrecked memories and dr\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890074448101,"sku":"NP9780544769809","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780544769809.jpg?v=1730232494","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/big-lonesome-isbn-9780544769809","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}