What do you think?
Rate this book
The Poor Children
This edgy, stunning collection deftly examines the underbelly of the human condition through a cross-section of fascinating characters—a correctional officer fixated on a juvenile offender, a Goth teenager and her werewolf boyfriend, a pyromaniac by happenstance, and a set of twins haunted by an unconfirmed death. Pushing beyond the norms of daily life and into the sometimes morally lawless worlds of her characters, Ford explores the eccentric, the perverse, the disenfranchised, and the darkly comic possibilities at play in us all. Includes the Pushcart Prize-winning story "Bananas and Limes" (published as "Project Fumarase" in the 2016 prize anthology).
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
190 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
3 people are currently reading
340 people want to read
About the author
April L. Ford
3 books5 followersApril is proud to belong to the LGBTQIA2S+ and people with disabilities communities. She finds purpose and pleasure in helping other underrepresented groups explore their passions and aptitudes for creative expression.
She is a Pushcart Prize recipient for her short story “Project Fumarase” and has enjoyed fully funded residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ucross Foundation. Her essay about losing her spouse to suicide, “I Will Tell You This Much, and Then We’ll Never Talk About It,” was a Finalist for The Lascaux Review’s Prize in Creative Nonfiction and is forthcoming in 'The Lascaux Review Volume 11: anno domini 2023' anthology.
Her books include 'Carousel: A Novel' (Inanna Publications), Winner of the 2020 International Book Awards for LGBTQ Fiction; 'The Poor Children: Stories', Winner of the 2013 Santa Fe Writer’s Project Program for Fiction; and 'Death Is a Side-Effect: Poems' (Frog Hollow Press, 2019).
April's second book of poetry, 'People Are Metaphors and Goodbyes', is forthcoming in 2024. "If I have a Daughter" is among the poems: https://lascauxreview.com/if-i-have-a....
----------
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Life is too short to dwell on what doesn't please us. My life is too short to critique books I can't praise and promote with all my enthusiastic heart. So if you're looking for anything less than five-star recommendations here, then you'll want to move on.
She is a Pushcart Prize recipient for her short story “Project Fumarase” and has enjoyed fully funded residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ucross Foundation. Her essay about losing her spouse to suicide, “I Will Tell You This Much, and Then We’ll Never Talk About It,” was a Finalist for The Lascaux Review’s Prize in Creative Nonfiction and is forthcoming in 'The Lascaux Review Volume 11: anno domini 2023' anthology.
Her books include 'Carousel: A Novel' (Inanna Publications), Winner of the 2020 International Book Awards for LGBTQ Fiction; 'The Poor Children: Stories', Winner of the 2013 Santa Fe Writer’s Project Program for Fiction; and 'Death Is a Side-Effect: Poems' (Frog Hollow Press, 2019).
April's second book of poetry, 'People Are Metaphors and Goodbyes', is forthcoming in 2024. "If I have a Daughter" is among the poems: https://lascauxreview.com/if-i-have-a....
----------
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Life is too short to dwell on what doesn't please us. My life is too short to critique books I can't praise and promote with all my enthusiastic heart. So if you're looking for anything less than five-star recommendations here, then you'll want to move on.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 1, 2015
This is an impressive, promising debut collection packed with stories and characters that both disturb and enchant. There is a dark humor and and a sense of self-awareness that keep at bay what would otherwise paralyze the stories with melodrama or cause the reader to turn away in unsympathetic disgust. In April Ford's deft hands, these stories, though peering into dark corners, are rendered in an accessible, compelling way.
June 11, 2021
The Poor Children is definitely unsentimental and at times harsh, but that doesn't mean you should avoid its challenge. This slim volume of short stories is a worthy read, full of darkness in the places where most would expect light. The children in these stories are certainly all poor - both literally and figuratively, in most cases - but their poverty is not the kind that fuels bootstrapping entrepreneurs and other do-gooders to praise its teachings. Instead, you'll find it paints quite a different portrait of childhood than the shiny happy people singing Kumbaya would like you to believe is the norm, which is precisely why the book is both troubling and profound.
Who are the victims here, and who are the perpetrators? Who should be pitied, and who condemned? Which of these children will be saved, and is there really any salvation?
Read the book for yourself to discover what really happens in group homes and correctional facilities, trailer parks and poor neighborhoods, and then ask yourself why you're so very disturbed. Perhaps you won't like the answers, but this book will certainly bring you face to face with plenty of deeper questions, as all great literature does.
(Full disclosure: I am friends with this author, and have included this book on my "writer friends" shelf.)
Who are the victims here, and who are the perpetrators? Who should be pitied, and who condemned? Which of these children will be saved, and is there really any salvation?
Read the book for yourself to discover what really happens in group homes and correctional facilities, trailer parks and poor neighborhoods, and then ask yourself why you're so very disturbed. Perhaps you won't like the answers, but this book will certainly bring you face to face with plenty of deeper questions, as all great literature does.
(Full disclosure: I am friends with this author, and have included this book on my "writer friends" shelf.)
September 27, 2015
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I admit, I was not expecting the unrelenting harshness and bleak outlook of April Ford's The Poor Children when first picking it up, and it took some getting used to before I was finally into the swing of things and along for the ride she clearly meant to set up for her readers; imagine the rural lawlessness of a Bonnie Jo Campbell story combined with the gothic blackness of Sam Shepard, with a healthy dollop of Dennis Cooper sexual transgression thrown into the mix. As such, then, this short and intense story collection is absolutely not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and you deserve to ask yourself whether you're even up for reading the the kinds of mental baseball bashings these pieces represent; but if you are, you'll find a lot to like here, an unblinking and sometimes surprisingly poetic look at the seedy underbelly of the American spirit, right up the alley of existing fans of Kathy Acker and others. Strongly recommended, but only to a highly specific crowd; you know who you are.
Out of 10: 8.6, or 9.1 for fans of transgressive literature
I admit, I was not expecting the unrelenting harshness and bleak outlook of April Ford's The Poor Children when first picking it up, and it took some getting used to before I was finally into the swing of things and along for the ride she clearly meant to set up for her readers; imagine the rural lawlessness of a Bonnie Jo Campbell story combined with the gothic blackness of Sam Shepard, with a healthy dollop of Dennis Cooper sexual transgression thrown into the mix. As such, then, this short and intense story collection is absolutely not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and you deserve to ask yourself whether you're even up for reading the the kinds of mental baseball bashings these pieces represent; but if you are, you'll find a lot to like here, an unblinking and sometimes surprisingly poetic look at the seedy underbelly of the American spirit, right up the alley of existing fans of Kathy Acker and others. Strongly recommended, but only to a highly specific crowd; you know who you are.
Out of 10: 8.6, or 9.1 for fans of transgressive literature
October 22, 2015
A superb debut. If April Ford was a less talented writer, it would be very easy to make these stories a self-indulgent, saccharine and heavy-handed. But with delicate, aching prose, Ford gives each character real, complex lives, intimately observing, without judging, the stories they present themselves. Brilliant, haunting and beautiful.
Read
June 12, 2015Reviewed by Joan Hanna for www.AuthorExposure.com
“Layla swigged the entire bottle of cleaning fluid because she knew it had been watered down. The COs measured the fluid before kids used it to clean, then measured it again after chores were done. A drop less than expected was cause for reprimand: an hour in the “quiet room,” the evening without privileges (chaperoned walk in the razor-wire courtyard, extra glass of apple juice, et cetera, et cetera). Usually the most well-behaved kid was assigned bathroom duty, and it was considered an honor, a rite-of-passage even, to he or she who got to snap on the heavy-duty rubber gloves and scrub the toilet until the day’s traces of urine, shit, vomit, spit, semen were gone. Anybody off the street would feel at ease to sit on that toilet.” (3)
The stories in The Poor Children by April L. Ford will grab you with their realism, pull you in with their honesty and slice you open with emotions you didn’t know you had. These stories are real, gutsy and paint a picture of children living lives forced upon them in a way that will disturb and move you. But don’t let that stop you from reading this intriguing collection. The people in these stories are raw but surviving, pulled down but definitely not out and how they fight back and survive within their circumstances is at once as fascinating as it is horrifying.
These worlds reel from “Layla” traversing the dangers of a group home in the opening story to a young girl’s obsession with an older man in “Yellow Gardenias” and the startling choices made by a young girl forced into one salacious situation after another in “A Marmalade Cat for Jenny” to the horrors that Peggy Galvin will see as the newest member of Project-F in the disturbing and riveting final story, “Bananas and Limes." These stories will pull you in (even when you don’t want them to). You will put the book down only to be so consumed by these images that you have to keep going back to read more.
I won’t say that this is an easy book to get through. I had to walk away from these stories on several occasions and give myself time to digest these characters and their situations. But I had to keep coming back; at times re-reading stories over and over to really get everything I could out of them. I wanted to go several layers deeper so I could fully grasp this idea of how these children find a way to survive; how they simply find the way to make choices that keep them moving along a landscape they inherited but never really chose.
Ford traverses the landscapes in The Poor Children with a deft hand and a command of imagery that will keep you fascinated and captivated. Your heart will splinter for these children; your heart will distend for these children, but mostly your heart will ache for these children. These stories are raw and real and after reading them, you may never want to watch reality TV again. This is a poignant and riveting collection of stories about children surviving on the edge of a world we can only get a small glimpse into but never really fully understand.This review was originally posted on Author Exposure
“Layla swigged the entire bottle of cleaning fluid because she knew it had been watered down. The COs measured the fluid before kids used it to clean, then measured it again after chores were done. A drop less than expected was cause for reprimand: an hour in the “quiet room,” the evening without privileges (chaperoned walk in the razor-wire courtyard, extra glass of apple juice, et cetera, et cetera). Usually the most well-behaved kid was assigned bathroom duty, and it was considered an honor, a rite-of-passage even, to he or she who got to snap on the heavy-duty rubber gloves and scrub the toilet until the day’s traces of urine, shit, vomit, spit, semen were gone. Anybody off the street would feel at ease to sit on that toilet.” (3)
The stories in The Poor Children by April L. Ford will grab you with their realism, pull you in with their honesty and slice you open with emotions you didn’t know you had. These stories are real, gutsy and paint a picture of children living lives forced upon them in a way that will disturb and move you. But don’t let that stop you from reading this intriguing collection. The people in these stories are raw but surviving, pulled down but definitely not out and how they fight back and survive within their circumstances is at once as fascinating as it is horrifying.
These worlds reel from “Layla” traversing the dangers of a group home in the opening story to a young girl’s obsession with an older man in “Yellow Gardenias” and the startling choices made by a young girl forced into one salacious situation after another in “A Marmalade Cat for Jenny” to the horrors that Peggy Galvin will see as the newest member of Project-F in the disturbing and riveting final story, “Bananas and Limes." These stories will pull you in (even when you don’t want them to). You will put the book down only to be so consumed by these images that you have to keep going back to read more.
I won’t say that this is an easy book to get through. I had to walk away from these stories on several occasions and give myself time to digest these characters and their situations. But I had to keep coming back; at times re-reading stories over and over to really get everything I could out of them. I wanted to go several layers deeper so I could fully grasp this idea of how these children find a way to survive; how they simply find the way to make choices that keep them moving along a landscape they inherited but never really chose.
Ford traverses the landscapes in The Poor Children with a deft hand and a command of imagery that will keep you fascinated and captivated. Your heart will splinter for these children; your heart will distend for these children, but mostly your heart will ache for these children. These stories are raw and real and after reading them, you may never want to watch reality TV again. This is a poignant and riveting collection of stories about children surviving on the edge of a world we can only get a small glimpse into but never really fully understand.This review was originally posted on Author Exposure
December 27, 2018
April L. Ford’s award-winning story collection, The Poor Children, is a courageous effort to remove the blinders we stubbornly cling to, the blinders that prevent us from seeing the pitiable conditions and situations that many hopelessly endure. In the worlds of these stories, cruelty, exploitation, and dysfunction are the norm, and the poor children are both victims and perpetrators.
The settings, subjects, and characters are diverse: teens in correctional facilities, families steeped in poverty and ignorance; inept, drunken parents; small towns outside the fringe of cultural normality; hapless correctional officers and social workers; a haunted museum ironically situated in a ski-resort town; beautiful, damaged children who are exploited because of their beauty or who use it for selfish gain; a fundamentalist cult where inbreeding has produced grotesque specimens and the opportunity for further exploitation. This collection is driven by dark impulses that we deny, ignore, or try to hide.
Ford writes about disturbing topics with authority. Most of the stories are delivered through first-person narrators, often kids in their early teens. In these she employs both male and female narrators whose voices are welded to the characters’ motives, environments, and tendencies. In the exceptions that unfold through a third-person voice, Ford handles the camera lens with admirable skill, moving seamlessly through time and in and out of characters’ minds.
Ford’s language in these stories is gritty and visceral while reflecting the beauty of spoiled fruit or faded blooms. The following example is from “Isabelle’s Haunting”:
First it was the youngest child, infant Valérie, who was found lying face down in her crib in
October. The autopsy revealed she had drowned in lung fluid, but the cause was neither viral
nor bacterial. The following month it was the twins, toddlers Benoît and Pierre Lamont. They
awoke in the middle of the night convulsing. … Twelve-year-old Isabelle was the next to go,
but her death was never confirmed. Her bed was found empty on the December after the
twin’s death, not a crease on the sheets or an imprint on the pillow. …
Readers who are brave enough to gaze unflinchingly upon the horrors we inflict upon ourselves and our children will savor this collection. The Poor Children is disturbing yet beautiful in its execution and the possibilities revealed when we rip down the mildewed curtains to let in the light.
The settings, subjects, and characters are diverse: teens in correctional facilities, families steeped in poverty and ignorance; inept, drunken parents; small towns outside the fringe of cultural normality; hapless correctional officers and social workers; a haunted museum ironically situated in a ski-resort town; beautiful, damaged children who are exploited because of their beauty or who use it for selfish gain; a fundamentalist cult where inbreeding has produced grotesque specimens and the opportunity for further exploitation. This collection is driven by dark impulses that we deny, ignore, or try to hide.
Ford writes about disturbing topics with authority. Most of the stories are delivered through first-person narrators, often kids in their early teens. In these she employs both male and female narrators whose voices are welded to the characters’ motives, environments, and tendencies. In the exceptions that unfold through a third-person voice, Ford handles the camera lens with admirable skill, moving seamlessly through time and in and out of characters’ minds.
Ford’s language in these stories is gritty and visceral while reflecting the beauty of spoiled fruit or faded blooms. The following example is from “Isabelle’s Haunting”:
First it was the youngest child, infant Valérie, who was found lying face down in her crib in
October. The autopsy revealed she had drowned in lung fluid, but the cause was neither viral
nor bacterial. The following month it was the twins, toddlers Benoît and Pierre Lamont. They
awoke in the middle of the night convulsing. … Twelve-year-old Isabelle was the next to go,
but her death was never confirmed. Her bed was found empty on the December after the
twin’s death, not a crease on the sheets or an imprint on the pillow. …
Readers who are brave enough to gaze unflinchingly upon the horrors we inflict upon ourselves and our children will savor this collection. The Poor Children is disturbing yet beautiful in its execution and the possibilities revealed when we rip down the mildewed curtains to let in the light.
January 14, 2019
A surprising unrelenting collection of unfortunate children, poor children, which in this works is arguably less about financial poverty as it is a paucity of morality. Each story takes us into the different world that each of these children occupy; all of them combat their own unique fight, yet they are brought together in a common struggle against insignificance, ignorance and, of course, poverty. April Ford writes concisely yet metaphorically. No image is gratuitous yet the imagery is strong, and strongly sad. I would highly recommend her work and look forward to reading more.
May 29, 2018
April Ford's writing is simply addictive. I'll admit some stories are gruesome and sad in so many ways that not only tears well up under your eyelids but sad in ways that make you realize how cruel this world is sometimes to its youngest inhabitants.
Dark and hopeless, but worth the fight.
My favorite story was RUNAWAYBITCH13.
I don't even really know why. The main narrator is a young girl with such realistic gumption and stamina for life. Her thoughts and dreams of future are incredibly off-setting to put it lightly. And she's in love with a boy named Justin who has lupus and believes he's a three-hundred-year-old werewolf, dangerous and broadly misunderstood, the last two facts more true than anyone suspects.
The ending is a real punch in the gut. Totally unexpected and yet the you-shoulda-seen-it-coming-it-was-right-there-in-everything-they-said kind. Brilliant! And sad, of course. But such is life sometimes.
Dark and hopeless, but worth the fight.
My favorite story was RUNAWAYBITCH13.
I don't even really know why. The main narrator is a young girl with such realistic gumption and stamina for life. Her thoughts and dreams of future are incredibly off-setting to put it lightly. And she's in love with a boy named Justin who has lupus and believes he's a three-hundred-year-old werewolf, dangerous and broadly misunderstood, the last two facts more true than anyone suspects.
The ending is a real punch in the gut. Totally unexpected and yet the you-shoulda-seen-it-coming-it-was-right-there-in-everything-they-said kind. Brilliant! And sad, of course. But such is life sometimes.
February 22, 2015
Solid collection of stories that will leave you feeling a little off kilter. Full review forthcoming on Philadelphia Review of Books.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews