The Hungry and the Haunted

by Rilla Askew

From the author of The Mercy Seat and Fire in Beulah comes a new collection of six stories troubled by ghosts that linger in our present moment. Set primarily in eastern Oklahoma during the 1970s, The Hungry and the Haunted is Rilla Askew's testament to young women and other outsiders navigating relationships, social change, and the power of place during increasingly precarious times. Some haunted by ancient wrongs, others yearning to escape or reckoning with primal griefs, each character wrestles with the bonds that wound them and the places that keep them tethered to their roots. This collection is not to be missed by anyone interested in questions of what becomes of our stories as we struggle to write them ourselves.

Known for her award-winning historical fiction, Askew evokes with resonant period detail the lives of earlier generations in these stories that speak to our current era of fragility and change.

Genres: Short Stories

162 pages, Paperback

Published September 17, 2024

About the author

Rilla Askew's newest novel, PRIZE FOR THE FIRE, is about the 16th century English martyr Anne Askew. Rilla Askew received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her first novel, THE MERCY SEAT, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dublin IMPAC Prize, was a Boston Globe Notable Book, and received the Oklahoma Book Award and the Western Heritage Award in 1998. Her acclaimed novel about the Tulsa Race Massacre, FIRE IN BEULAH, received the American Book Award and the Myers Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. She was a 2004 fellow at Civiella Ranieri in Umbertide, Italy, and in 2008 her novel HARPSONG received the Oklahoma Book Award, the Western Heritage Award, the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West, and the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas. Askew received the 2011 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. Her novel KIND OF KIN deals with state immigration laws and was a finalist for the Western Spur Award, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC Prize. Her most recent book is a collection of creative nonfiction MOST AMERICAN: Notes From A Wounded Place. Kirkus Reviews calls Most American "An eloquently thoughtful memoir in essays." In nine linked works of creative nonfiction, Askew spotlights the complex history of her home state. From the Trail of Tears to the Tulsa Race Riot to the Murrah Federal Building bombing, Oklahoma appears as a microcosm of our national saga. Yet no matter our location, Askew argues, we must own the whole truth of our history if the wounds of division that separate us are ever to heal.

"Five generations of Rilla Askew's family have occupied southeastern Oklahoma. Celebrating this birthright, she has concocted of it her own Faulknerian kingdom. Askew is writing a mythic cycle, novels and stories that unsettle our view of the West's settling. In a continuous fictional mural populated with hardscrabble souls - credible, noble and flawed - Askew is completing the uncompleted crossing of the plains. Trusting prose that is disciplined, luxuriant and muscular, she is forging a chronicle as humane as it is elemental."

Allan Gurganus
May 20, 2009
American Academy of Arts and Letters

Reviews

[Teresa]

The themes in these stories are ones I’m interested in, especially that of girls and women who feel invisible and sometimes take drastic measures to render themselves visible. The outcomes aren’t always what the characters set out to achieve, but eventually they get to where they want to go.

My favorite of the stories is “Two of Her.” If you know me, you’ll understand why: not only does it employ the aforementioned theme, but it also shares other themes with Shirley Jackson, as well as its structuring being reminiscent of one of Jackson’s techniques.

Askew is a writer of renown and this is the first of her work I’m reading. I will read more.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Askew, with just a few masterly-chosen words, can conjure Oklahoma, adolescent longing, and the struggles of all of us...just trying to live our lives.

[Benjamin Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are beautifully crafted stories about longing, hope, and disappointment. Askew, one of Oklahoma's best living writers, is at the top of her game, with each short story conjuring a fully realized personal world around each main character. Askew's prose is tightly controlled, even lapidary, without being overly-mannered or intrusive. I can't think of a recent work of fiction that captures such a total sense of sehnsucht with such economy in language and plot. All the stories are great, but my favorite is "The Hungry," which is a sort of portrait of the artist. This is brilliant, moving, and imaginative work that should not be missed.

[LeeAnna Weaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rilla Askew is my favorite Oklahoma author. The six stories in her latest collection are set in rural Oklahoma in the 1970's. Characters are mostly women struggling with identity and agency. They are invisible, impoverished, and often abused, but filled with a self determination that prevents surrendering and keeps them moving forward. My favorite is Tahlequah Triptych - three stories linked together over a space of a few years. As I read, I was invested in the characters, wanting them to find release from their personal demons and success in their dreams. The Hungry and the Haunted is a solid group of short stories. Recommended.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will experience heartbreak in these stories, a deep, deep sense of the loss experienced by the characters that come alive in six stories. But the writing will keep you turning pages. The writing will bring you back. Three of the stories are linked, under the title “Tahlequah Triptych.” When I got to the last page of the third one, immediately I turned to the first page of the first one—and read them all again. I’ll keep this collection near at hand.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fifth book I've read by RillaAskew. She's a great writer and master of hardscrabble. By that, I mean she draws vivid pictures of real characters that include their inner thoughts, motivations, and circumstances, however gritty and un-glamorous. She doesn't shy away from downtrodden protagonists or folksy dialogue. Hungry and haunted is an apt title for this collection of six short stories.

[Mackenzie Clevenger]

- no rating!

[Toby LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters filling these pages are certainly hungry, but at the end of it I am the most haunted. Askew has a way of mashing together visceral, corporeal experiences, with ethereal will-o'-the-wisps of destiny and emotion, into something that ends up more tangible than either. In each characters' trek to be somebody, they become someone to the reader, even if they never reach the goal they purport to want. Breathing and wanting and dreaming as much as any of her human characters is Oklahoma. On this land Askew creates a place that can be home to yearn or a curse to avoid. Because of this, it's place that is the most unreliable narrator of these stories.

[Timothy Sikes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one!

I was a little hesitant going in, the "small town problems" stories often end up coming across a trite or maudlin, but Askew does a great job of grounding these as human stories. I love the way she plays with themes of the self as presented to others, and one's own projected or imagined self.