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The Truth and All Its Ugly
A father, a son, a suicide, a pink piano, an axe, a robot, yellowjackets affixed to the eyes of Precious Moments figurines, and the news about how "dead trees got not one thing on milkweed and sumac, horsemint and sweet William." A tour-de-force at story length from Kyle Minor, award-winning author of Praying Drunk, exclusively available on the Kindle.
- GenresShort Stories
Unknown Binding
First published April 27, 2011
4 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Kyle Minor
18 books149 followersKyle Minor is the author of two collections of short fiction: Praying Drunk (2014) and In the Devil's Territory (2008). He is the winner of the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction and the Tara M. Kroger Prize for Short Fiction, one of Random House’s Best New Voices of 2006, and a three-time honoree in the Atlantic Monthly contest. His work has appeared online at Esquire, The Atlantic, Salon, and Tin House, and in print in The New York Times Book Review, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories 2008, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers: Random House Presents the Best New Voices of 2006, Forty Stories: New Voices from Harper Perennial, and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013.
http://www.kyleminor.com
Praise for Praying Drunk:
“The stories [in Praying Drunk] span decades as they move from Kentucky to Haiti and points between, but they work in concert to slowly reveal the landscape of an emotionally desolate quasi-America sinking under the weight of its own faith. Minor writes beautifully about these ruined lives.” - The New York Times Book Review
“The beauty of Praying Drunk is that it transcends suffering to evoke the sublime.” - Los Angeles Times
“Nothing here is contained, the way a hit single on a record stands alone—characters recur, themes and forms are deepened and visited again, moments glimpsed earlier come back with haunting force. ” - The Atlantic
“[Kyle] Minor mauls you with his vicious prose, and then takes your hand and asks you to join him in a form of prayer.” - Electric Literature
“When the characters residing in Kyle Minor’s engrossing and lively Praying Drunk find a toehold on the good life, I hope that it’s autobiographical. When the characters find themselves enveloped in desperate situations, irreversible circumstances, and despair, I pray that it’s solely out of the writer’s imagination. These fine stories–up there with the best works of Padgett Powell, Donald Barthelme, and Robert Coover–never straddle a milquetoast fence: they’re extreme in humor, extreme in sorrowfulness, and 100% individually-wrapped masterpieces. I am haunted and mesmerized by this collection.”
- George Singleton, author of Stray Decorum
“Praying Drunk gets the whole thing down: the cosmic muck and the local glory, the big questions and the tiny lives, the bullies and the saviors, the screaming at the sky and the lights by the side of the road late at night on a long drive. I finished this book with my heart pounding and grateful, my coffee cold and my smile wide and crying like a baby.”
- Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs and The Basic Eight
“Watch Praying Drunk’s lovely, lonely people wrestle with Minor’s dark God and remember when you too tried to reason with Him and unravel His mysterious commands. These passionate tales, full of longing and daring and honesty, will disturb and inspire you.”
- Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution
“Similar to a great magic trick, the 13 stories in Minor’s (In the Devil’s Territory) latest lure reader investment with strong visuals while simultaneously pulling the rug out from underfoot with clever, literary sleights–of-hand. Though not necessarily linked in the traditional sense, there is a sequential order to the collection—ideas, locations, incidents, and characters echo as the volume chugs forward—and the result is an often dazzling, emotional, funny, captivating puzzle.” – Publishers Weekly
http://www.kyleminor.com
Praise for Praying Drunk:
“The stories [in Praying Drunk] span decades as they move from Kentucky to Haiti and points between, but they work in concert to slowly reveal the landscape of an emotionally desolate quasi-America sinking under the weight of its own faith. Minor writes beautifully about these ruined lives.” - The New York Times Book Review
“The beauty of Praying Drunk is that it transcends suffering to evoke the sublime.” - Los Angeles Times
“Nothing here is contained, the way a hit single on a record stands alone—characters recur, themes and forms are deepened and visited again, moments glimpsed earlier come back with haunting force. ” - The Atlantic
“[Kyle] Minor mauls you with his vicious prose, and then takes your hand and asks you to join him in a form of prayer.” - Electric Literature
“When the characters residing in Kyle Minor’s engrossing and lively Praying Drunk find a toehold on the good life, I hope that it’s autobiographical. When the characters find themselves enveloped in desperate situations, irreversible circumstances, and despair, I pray that it’s solely out of the writer’s imagination. These fine stories–up there with the best works of Padgett Powell, Donald Barthelme, and Robert Coover–never straddle a milquetoast fence: they’re extreme in humor, extreme in sorrowfulness, and 100% individually-wrapped masterpieces. I am haunted and mesmerized by this collection.”
- George Singleton, author of Stray Decorum
“Praying Drunk gets the whole thing down: the cosmic muck and the local glory, the big questions and the tiny lives, the bullies and the saviors, the screaming at the sky and the lights by the side of the road late at night on a long drive. I finished this book with my heart pounding and grateful, my coffee cold and my smile wide and crying like a baby.”
- Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs and The Basic Eight
“Watch Praying Drunk’s lovely, lonely people wrestle with Minor’s dark God and remember when you too tried to reason with Him and unravel His mysterious commands. These passionate tales, full of longing and daring and honesty, will disturb and inspire you.”
- Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution
“Similar to a great magic trick, the 13 stories in Minor’s (In the Devil’s Territory) latest lure reader investment with strong visuals while simultaneously pulling the rug out from underfoot with clever, literary sleights–of-hand. Though not necessarily linked in the traditional sense, there is a sequential order to the collection—ideas, locations, incidents, and characters echo as the volume chugs forward—and the result is an often dazzling, emotional, funny, captivating puzzle.” – Publishers Weekly
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 4, 2012
A father and son relationship in the future 2024, where suddenly at the sons age of fifteen their bond together strengthens due to some bizarre violent behavior that they share. As time passes it makes you think that if maybe it he stopped at a certain place and advised his son otherwise all could have turned out better.
He finds joy in seeing his son, in his theory, man up and be tough and aggressive he says in the story..
"It was pure joy, watching him lift that ace and drive it into that piano. Up until then his head was always in books or that damn computer."
Due to body pains the father takes methadone, but he snorts it and when the son catches eye of this he tries some. That probably was a contributing factor to his behavior going off the edge. Some new events take place because of knowledge that comes to light, matters become very grim.
The father soon realizes that whats done is done and there is no second chance, once they are grown up and events have taken place there's no going back. The past can't be undone. There could be also a lesson on raising sons here for fathers.
A nice well done short story that is tragic and shocking, the author keeps you reeled in and delivers a different twist to the story.
The review @ http://more2read.com/review/the-truth-and-all-its-ugly-by-kyle-minor/
He finds joy in seeing his son, in his theory, man up and be tough and aggressive he says in the story..
"It was pure joy, watching him lift that ace and drive it into that piano. Up until then his head was always in books or that damn computer."
Due to body pains the father takes methadone, but he snorts it and when the son catches eye of this he tries some. That probably was a contributing factor to his behavior going off the edge. Some new events take place because of knowledge that comes to light, matters become very grim.
The father soon realizes that whats done is done and there is no second chance, once they are grown up and events have taken place there's no going back. The past can't be undone. There could be also a lesson on raising sons here for fathers.
A nice well done short story that is tragic and shocking, the author keeps you reeled in and delivers a different twist to the story.
The review @ http://more2read.com/review/the-truth-and-all-its-ugly-by-kyle-minor/
June 26, 2011
I loved this story.
August 23, 2017
I almost wonder if the point of this story was to try and get the audience to sympathize with the world's most unsympathetic character. Spoiler alert: I felt zero sympathy.
April 9, 2014
What AI should have been before Speilberg got his hands on it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews