Prince of the World: Stories

by Christopher R. Howard

In these six stories, Chris Howard reasserts his talent for evoking the gritty and the apocalyptic with poetic grace. Intelligent People Speaking Reasonably follows two Iraq vets adrift in the civilian life of the Pacific Northwest. Space is Kindness witnesses the unexpected death of Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan from the perspective of a local reporter and a photographer rushing to the crash-site in 2000. Darkstar takes place in Dublin and follows a young outcast named Sailor through grimy, pre Apocalyptic streets as he tries to find the soulmate he hasn't seen since childhood. Son of Man tells the story of the Manson family from the perspective of one of its members. How to Make Millions in the Oil Market contemplates the absurdity of war from the point of view of a Blackwater contractor first in the chaos of Iraq and later in the relative peace of the US. The epic title story Prince of the World follows a mixed-race orphan named Labelle as he wanders north along the Mississippi, ultimately caught in the infamous Starved Rock Massacre in Howard's home-state of Illinois.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Oriana]

I loooooved Tea of Ulaanbataar (this much), so despite how I tend to hate short stories, I was super psyched when Christopher himself offered to send me this one. I really should have started it right away (he sent it a month or so ago), because these stories are incredibly evocative and intense—but also bleak and stark and somewhat hopeless, and it's April and finally becoming spring after the longest damn winter, and the city is so so bright and beautiful now and I just don't have it in me to dive down into this kind of dark despair.

I will definitely go back to these though, soon.