What do you think?
Rate this book
Fox Tooth Heart: Stories
"A phenomenal talent blazing up suddenly on the horizon. . . . precise, brilliant language that evokes without ever having to explain. . . . His transcendent vision gives us devastating glimpses."—Elle
"John McManus writes visceral prose that explodes within the tight boundaries of the short story. These narratives possess a graceful internal logic and feature a wide range of gritty characters rebelling against an indifferent and often brutal world."—Bookforum
"The stories in John McManus's Born on a Train are powered by radiant prose."—Vanity Fair
John McManus's long awaited short story collection encompasses the geographic limits of America, from trailers hidden in deep Southern woods to an Arkansas ranch converted into an elephant refuge. His lost-soul characters reel precariously between common anxiety and drug-enhanced paranoia, sober reality and fearsome hallucination. These nine masterpieces of twisted humor and pathos re-establish McManus as one of the most bracing voices of our time.
John McManus is the author of the novel Bitter Milk and the short story collections Born on a Train and Stop Breakin Down, all published by Picador. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Oxford American, The Literary Review, Harvard Review, and many other places. He is the youngest-ever recipient of the Whiting Award.
"John McManus writes visceral prose that explodes within the tight boundaries of the short story. These narratives possess a graceful internal logic and feature a wide range of gritty characters rebelling against an indifferent and often brutal world."—Bookforum
"The stories in John McManus's Born on a Train are powered by radiant prose."—Vanity Fair
John McManus's long awaited short story collection encompasses the geographic limits of America, from trailers hidden in deep Southern woods to an Arkansas ranch converted into an elephant refuge. His lost-soul characters reel precariously between common anxiety and drug-enhanced paranoia, sober reality and fearsome hallucination. These nine masterpieces of twisted humor and pathos re-establish McManus as one of the most bracing voices of our time.
John McManus is the author of the novel Bitter Milk and the short story collections Born on a Train and Stop Breakin Down, all published by Picador. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Oxford American, The Literary Review, Harvard Review, and many other places. He is the youngest-ever recipient of the Whiting Award.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
241 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 10, 2015
12 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
About the author
John McManus
45 books14 followersLibrarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
For the software engineer, see John McManus.
For the software engineer, see John McManus.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 25, 2016
Wasn't feeling this collection in the early going. The opener, "Elephant Sanctuary," follows an alcoholic (alt-, I guess) country star on the run from tragedy to his alcoholic, similarly fugitive father and an elephant sanctuary. It's the sort of story I always feel I ought to like, I want to like, but I ultimately don't--all sorts of crazy and meaningful and even delightful pieces, but they never quite congeal. The second story, "Betsy From Pike," nearly made me lay the book down, following a mentally-ill abuse survivor on the lam. Ultimately with so-called Satanists. The narration is kinetic, frenetic--perhaps to a fault. I reckon there's an argument to be made that it conveys the character's state of mind, but I think the scattered prose reads more like sloppy prose than an idiosyncratic viewpoint. Something in the neighborhood of the imitation fallacy, I guess.
Alcoholics and the mentally ill appear frequently throughout these stories, and I think McManus really hits stride with the third story in the collection. "Bugaboo" follows a rock climber suffering from anxiety, but the story's strong arc and cleaner prose, tighter narration, make it a much more effective story. Indeed, a fantastic story. "Cult Heroes" feels similar, following a young cycling star in the making as he searches for his absent father--and visits the Grand Canyon--during a government shutdown. "The Gnat Line" tenderly follows an outcast camp of registered sex offenders, while "Gateway to the Ozarks" chronicles a young clone of Thomas Jefferson dealing with personal guilt and family drama. The coming-of-age theme features prominently also in "The Ninety-fifth Percentile," in which a privileged, and closeted, teen seeks solace in drugs and fast cars between Gulf Coast hurricanes; and in "Gainliness" as a young man finds in alcohol a problematic control valve for his brain.
After a rough start, for me, it was an enjoyable collection.
Alcoholics and the mentally ill appear frequently throughout these stories, and I think McManus really hits stride with the third story in the collection. "Bugaboo" follows a rock climber suffering from anxiety, but the story's strong arc and cleaner prose, tighter narration, make it a much more effective story. Indeed, a fantastic story. "Cult Heroes" feels similar, following a young cycling star in the making as he searches for his absent father--and visits the Grand Canyon--during a government shutdown. "The Gnat Line" tenderly follows an outcast camp of registered sex offenders, while "Gateway to the Ozarks" chronicles a young clone of Thomas Jefferson dealing with personal guilt and family drama. The coming-of-age theme features prominently also in "The Ninety-fifth Percentile," in which a privileged, and closeted, teen seeks solace in drugs and fast cars between Gulf Coast hurricanes; and in "Gainliness" as a young man finds in alcohol a problematic control valve for his brain.
After a rough start, for me, it was an enjoyable collection.
August 18, 2017
Not bad. In fact, there were some enjoyable short-stories. By description I was expecting short-stories of the likes of Dennis Johnson, Thom Jones, or even Jeffrey Eugenides. McManus is a little more like Russell Banks, which isn't bad by any stetch of the imagination, these are layered evocative short-stories.
I read a few reviews that seem a little hypercritical mostly around a grotesque story that i skipped around. I don't want to pile on with too much criticism, these were well written stories. I have to make a critical comment, when you center part of a short-story background on a poker hand you should explain the whole play thoroughly. In pokerese terms were you in the blind, did you bet the hand pre-flop, or did you just go all-in on a long shot?
I read a few reviews that seem a little hypercritical mostly around a grotesque story that i skipped around. I don't want to pile on with too much criticism, these were well written stories. I have to make a critical comment, when you center part of a short-story background on a poker hand you should explain the whole play thoroughly. In pokerese terms were you in the blind, did you bet the hand pre-flop, or did you just go all-in on a long shot?
December 5, 2024
These stories were hit-or-miss for me. Most were hits, but a few misses deflated my esteem for the collection as a whole. That said, it probably boils down to taste...I think McManus is a great writer, and my variable reactions to his stories don't change that.
"Bagaboo" and "Cult Heroes" were standouts for me.
"Bagaboo" and "Cult Heroes" were standouts for me.
July 18, 2017
dark, visceral, convulted
August 6, 2020
Decent mix of good and mediocre short stories.
March 3, 2022
Brutal and wonderful. Loved it.
March 3, 2017
I enjoyed the first two or three of these breathless, kind of incoherent, stories, but the rest fade into a blur of boozy bravado and violent indifference. At times you feel there is something happening here, and there's someone to care about, but nothing is happening, and there isn't.
April 14, 2016
Originally appeared on
Lambda Literary
John McManus’s new collection Fox Tooth Heart is a gripping, often tragic meditation on the vast distance between inner life and outer expectations. Each of these nine stories create a rich world of personal struggle for their protagonists, worlds that tend to be characterized by an extreme dissonance of ability and opportunity where the very notion of salvation is called into question.
In “Gateway to the Ozarks,” a tragedy forces a crisis of identity for a young boy who is one of several clones of Thomas Jefferson placed with families throughout the country and across socio-economic lines in hopes of determining the limits of nurture versus nature. In “Cult Heroes,” Hunter, a mountain biking champion, wishes for emancipation from his Christian Scientist mother and sets off on a road trip to find his father on the eve of the government shutdown in 1995, a journey that culminates with the biking of the Grand Canyon. In “Bugaboo,” Max finds relief from crippling delusions in free-solo mountain climbing, setting in motion an inevitable confrontation between personal safety and personal well-being.
The impoverished circumstances of the Jefferson clone Carl Barton’s life repeat with great regularity for McManus’s characters who all seem to have drawn the short straw of privilege. But it’s Hunter and Max who best typify McManus’s protagonists. They are men endowed with extraordinary physical abilities who find themselves separated from a harmonious life by a deep chasm. Enabled by their gifts to rarefied realms of achievement, their coping skills narrow while their instincts to self-preservation tilt toward the increasingly desperate. To race down the Grand Canyon on a mountain bike or to free-solo the most foreboding peaks in Yosemite, is to telegraph that all is not well. Yet it is precisely these types of exploits that garner increased scrutiny, and with increased scrutiny comes a powerful impulse to retreat further into their compulsion, causing the situation to escalate. Speaking of the abusive relationship at the heart of the final story in the collection, “Blood Brothers.” McManus writes, “Sometimes he’d smack me upside the head, which we both liked.” One gets the sense that these men are running down the clock all the while goading the clock to tick faster.
Succor is in short supply in this collection as is equivocation. The book is too concerned with playing out the zero-sum scenario for that. Yet that is not to suggest a sadistic brutality with the reader. McManus’s muscular, sparse style cajoles the reader into epiphany the same way a drowning victim may cling to the neck of his savior. For the characters in these stories, the time for diplomacy has simply run out.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
John McManus’s new collection Fox Tooth Heart is a gripping, often tragic meditation on the vast distance between inner life and outer expectations. Each of these nine stories create a rich world of personal struggle for their protagonists, worlds that tend to be characterized by an extreme dissonance of ability and opportunity where the very notion of salvation is called into question.
In “Gateway to the Ozarks,” a tragedy forces a crisis of identity for a young boy who is one of several clones of Thomas Jefferson placed with families throughout the country and across socio-economic lines in hopes of determining the limits of nurture versus nature. In “Cult Heroes,” Hunter, a mountain biking champion, wishes for emancipation from his Christian Scientist mother and sets off on a road trip to find his father on the eve of the government shutdown in 1995, a journey that culminates with the biking of the Grand Canyon. In “Bugaboo,” Max finds relief from crippling delusions in free-solo mountain climbing, setting in motion an inevitable confrontation between personal safety and personal well-being.
The impoverished circumstances of the Jefferson clone Carl Barton’s life repeat with great regularity for McManus’s characters who all seem to have drawn the short straw of privilege. But it’s Hunter and Max who best typify McManus’s protagonists. They are men endowed with extraordinary physical abilities who find themselves separated from a harmonious life by a deep chasm. Enabled by their gifts to rarefied realms of achievement, their coping skills narrow while their instincts to self-preservation tilt toward the increasingly desperate. To race down the Grand Canyon on a mountain bike or to free-solo the most foreboding peaks in Yosemite, is to telegraph that all is not well. Yet it is precisely these types of exploits that garner increased scrutiny, and with increased scrutiny comes a powerful impulse to retreat further into their compulsion, causing the situation to escalate. Speaking of the abusive relationship at the heart of the final story in the collection, “Blood Brothers.” McManus writes, “Sometimes he’d smack me upside the head, which we both liked.” One gets the sense that these men are running down the clock all the while goading the clock to tick faster.
Succor is in short supply in this collection as is equivocation. The book is too concerned with playing out the zero-sum scenario for that. Yet that is not to suggest a sadistic brutality with the reader. McManus’s muscular, sparse style cajoles the reader into epiphany the same way a drowning victim may cling to the neck of his savior. For the characters in these stories, the time for diplomacy has simply run out.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
March 2, 2016
Venture outside the hard lines of the city into the exurbs and beyond, and you often confront a depressing blandness rather than bucolic majesty. While the population may lack a clear identity, it’s exactly this fringe, with a permeable perimeter where laws can be bent and the peculiar seems plausible, that is ripe for odd encounters.
It’s that liminal space that author John McManus mines, exploring a disturbing yet familiar landscape of bullies, addicts, fractured fools and lost souls. In the nine short stories that make up the collection Fox Tooth Heart, McManus doesn’t shy away from the ugliness that exists outside our car windows, off the interstate exit ramp or in that shoddy strip mall.
Just as Dorothy Allison detailed in Bastard Out of Carolina, McManus is interested in the “they” that are disparaged by the elite. But now the disenfranchised of the New South has sprawled — just like most Southern cities — beyond the confines of the working poor to include a litany of other undesirables caught in a web from which it seems impossible to wrestle free.
Read the full review here: https://medium.com/@jerryportwood/men...
It’s that liminal space that author John McManus mines, exploring a disturbing yet familiar landscape of bullies, addicts, fractured fools and lost souls. In the nine short stories that make up the collection Fox Tooth Heart, McManus doesn’t shy away from the ugliness that exists outside our car windows, off the interstate exit ramp or in that shoddy strip mall.
Just as Dorothy Allison detailed in Bastard Out of Carolina, McManus is interested in the “they” that are disparaged by the elite. But now the disenfranchised of the New South has sprawled — just like most Southern cities — beyond the confines of the working poor to include a litany of other undesirables caught in a web from which it seems impossible to wrestle free.
Read the full review here: https://medium.com/@jerryportwood/men...
January 12, 2016
"I sensed chaos in her when she squeezed my hand." (from "Elephant Sanctuary"). This collection surely was inspired by Eris, the goddess of chaos, discord, and strife. I love these often doomed characters, and genuinely felt that each of these short stories could have easily been turned into complete novels, such was the feeling of wanting more after each one (more of the characters, more of the story, more of the worlds in which they struggled). McManus captured the minds and hearts of strong-willed but flawed people who's experiences and options were limited in no small part by their finances. As with so many of us, "To be poor was to know less."(from "Gateway to the Ozarks").
January 19, 2016
Although often frustrated at the abysses into which characters fall by chance and choice, I realize that this sort of reader judgment is short-sighted.
McManus spans all sorts of divides in these stories - time, place, character, setting, conflict - but the stories are linked by the overarching themes of survival, desperation, hope, self-justifying pity, yearning, lost parents and children, shrill success of sorts, rationalization, and the horribly hard journey of discovery, of truth.
Really made me think about how people become what they're surrounded by - and get used to it, foster it, seek it, and want to escape.
McManus is a worthy writer.
McManus spans all sorts of divides in these stories - time, place, character, setting, conflict - but the stories are linked by the overarching themes of survival, desperation, hope, self-justifying pity, yearning, lost parents and children, shrill success of sorts, rationalization, and the horribly hard journey of discovery, of truth.
Really made me think about how people become what they're surrounded by - and get used to it, foster it, seek it, and want to escape.
McManus is a worthy writer.
May 20, 2016
I actually really appreciate that the nine stories share a lot of themes, like yearning, lack of parents/family, serious anxiety and mental instability. But after a while, it seemed like a ninefold rehashing of the same ideas and character arcs. Plus it's all relentlessly depressing. Points for artistry.
April 1, 2016
Too dark for me - and I love a dark story. While the collection is well-written it did not draw me in. The whole collection was dismal for the sake of being dismal. The first story was ok but after that it just was dark, dismal, dark, dismal, dark, dismal - you get my drift.
January 9, 2016
Couldn't put down.
February 6, 2016
Backwoods, misplaced, horrible characters come alive with great dialogue that is disjointed and often not connected. Parents are always absent, drugged, or insane. Nothing GLBT
June 13, 2017
These stories are so twisted and fascinating. It's a dark world, outside of my experience, yet the author is able to create complex characters that hold my attention completely.
November 14, 2024
Fav book fav author it connected w me in surreal ways i recommend him to everyone
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews