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Unbend the River

Unbend the River

Current price: $21.95
This product is not returnable.
Publication Date: January 19th, 2024
Publisher:
Black Lawrence Press, Inc.
ISBN:
9781625570611
Pages:
175
Good Neighbor Bookstore
4 on hand, as of Apr 27 3:07pm
Available

Description

The linked stories in Unbend the River are set along a forested stretch of land between Lake Erie and the upper Allegheny River in Western New York, places dense with rivers, hills, and forest. The characters, all of whom are tied to a modern knife manufacturing plant, illustrate all the ways love and longing shapeshift over the course of a long life. A host of elderly hockey players, Franciscan Friars, loser heroes, budding conmen, and unintentional historians are all wired to search for meaning. Each flash their creative genius when fighting off idleness, anger, and disappointment. They build nightmare hotrods and race school buses; train wild dogs, homing pigeons, and dancing horses; and fight wildfires and grasshopper swarms. They crash headlong into the chaos, confusion, and confluence of their homes, never losing their energy to seek out the essential miracles hidden all around them.

About the Author

Devin Murphy is a national bestselling author of the novels The Boat Runner (2017) and Tiny Americans (2019) published by Harper Perennial. These books have been selected as Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers, Illinois Reads, and book of the year by the Chicago Writer's Association, and Society of Midland Authors. His short story collection, UNBEND THE RIVER (2024), is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. His recent work appears in The Chicago Tribune, Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, The Sun, and Outside Magazine as well as many others. He holds an MFA from Colorado State University, a PHD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Bradley University, and lives in Chicago with his wife and their three kids.