Soon: Stories

by Pam Durban, Mary Hood (Foreword)

Pam Durban's new collection of stories explores the myriad ways people lose, find, and hold on to one another. When all else fails her characters science, religion, family, self the powerful act of storytelling itself keeps their broken lives together and fosters hope. Each story in this rewarding and multifaceted collection introduces people who yearn for better lives and find themselves entangled in the hopes and dreams that heal and bind us all.
The title story in Soon chosen by John Updike for The Best American Short Stories of the Century anthology follows two generations of a family whose lives are driven by the patient and brutal need that people called hope, which . . . formed from your present life a future where you would be healed or loved. In The Jap Room, winner of the 2008 Goodheart Prize, a woman tries to help her husband, a World War II veteran, finally come home. Rowing to Darien introduces a famous English actress as she rows away from her husband s rice plantation. In Hush a gravely ill man encounters himself in the darkness of Kentucky s iconic Mammoth Cave. An adopted child waits for his mother to come back for him in Birth Mother, and, in Forward, Elsewhere, Out, a mother must come to terms with her adolescent son s sexuality. The stories in this collection deftly broach universal themes of love, loss, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
Durban s writing has been praised for its depth and mastery of characterization, its ability to persuade readers that the lives of the people in her stories are true, that their troubles and pleasures are real enough to matter. The nuanced and artfully rendered cast in this collection wrestles with the big questions that face us all Why are we here? How are we to live? What matters most? The thirteen stories in Soon have appeared in earlier forms in Atlanta Magazine, Indiana Review, Georgia Review, Carolina Quarterly, Idaho Review, Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Five Points, High Five: An Anthology of Fiction from 10 Years of Five Points, New Stories from the South: The Year s Best, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Short Stories of the Century.
The collection includes a foreword from novelist and short story writer Mary Hood, winner of the Flannery O Connor Prize, Townsend Prize, and Lillian Smith Award."

Genres: Short Stories

128 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2015

About the author

from the back of the book All Set About with Fever Trees
Pam Durban grew up in South Carolina. She has worked as a journalist and teacher in New York, Kentucky, and Georgia. She was the 1984 recipient of the Rinehart Award in Fiction, and her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Tri-Quarterly, Crazyhorse, and The Georgia Review. The title story of this, her first book, appeared in The Editor's Choice anthology, Vol. II. She currently teaches at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

from amazon.com:
Pam Durban is the author of The Laughing Place, which won the 1994 Townsend Prize for Fiction. In addition, Durban is the recipient of the 1988 Whiting Writer's Award and the 1984 Rinehart Award in Fiction. Her stories, which have appeared in such publications as Tri-Quarterly, Crazyhorse, and The Georgia Review, have been widely anthologized. She teaches at Georgia State University.

Reviews

[Beth Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read some truly amazing books this year and this book just soared away over the top of them all. From the first page, I was captivated by the writing style, the combination of forthrightness and an eerie sense of placidity, like a sailboat's wake on a mirror-like sea. And then came the characters, so unusual and yet so recognizable, with stories so common and yet so riveting in the capable hands of this brilliant author. I can't believe Durban is not a household name or at least a huge bestseller. She should be. This book is a treasure.

[Marjorie Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Rowing to Darien" starts this riveting story collection with a young wife's escape from a Southern coastal plantation, her desperation fueled by her Yankee rejection of the full knowledge of the strangeness of slavery and the intimate hatred between slaves and masters. "Just over the dike, she heard the river sweep by, its eternal windy rush, and from the kitchen house she heard Judy singing, a sharp, wailing song that slid up and down a mournful scale." Well, the rest of the stories are more contemporary, and equally insightful, but this first one has haunted me since the first time I read it. One of the great Story River Books, part of the series edited by Pat Conroy, now deceases. You can almost taste his love of this part of the world in the lines of these stories.

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soon is the best short story book I have read in a very long time. The stories all make sense, come to a conclusion (though not necessarily a standard, pat conclusion) and are cohesive. I especially enjoyed the final story, which shared the book's title. If you only read one short story book this year you need to make it Soon.

I received this book free from Goodreads First Reads.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a First Reads Giveaway. It's a brief but enjoyable collection of short stories, many about the relationships between people - mothers and children, husbands and wives, etc. - and the changes therein due to time and circumstance.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pam Durban is a wonderful writer- a local girl who made good!