Jesus Is Sending You This Message: Stories

by Jim Grimsley, Dorothy Allison (Introduction)

Jim Grimsley, novelist and playwright, holds no apologies when providing the psychological reasoning for human emotions in this first-time collection of his short stories. Jim Grimsley is a PEN/Hemingway Award–winning author. He is senior writer-in-residence at Emory University and has been playwright in residence at 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta since 1986. He also is the author of several works of fiction, including Dream Boy (soon to be a major motion picture).

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, LGBT

217 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Jim Grimsley published a new novel in May of 2022, The Dove in the Belly, out from Levine Querido. The book is a look at the past when queer people lived more hidden lives than now. Grimsley was born in rural eastern North Carolina. He has published short stories and essays in various quarterlies, including DoubleTake, New Orleans Review, Carolina Quarterly, New Virginia Review, the LA Times, and the New York Times Book Review. Jim’s first novel Winter Birds, was published in the United States by Algonquin Books in the fall of 1994. Winter Birds won the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. He has published other novels, including Dream Boy, Kirith Kirin, and My Drowning. His books are available in Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese. He has also published a collection of plays and most recently a memoir, How I Shed My Skin. His body of work as a prose writer and playwright was awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005. For twenty years he taught writing at Emory University in Atlanta.

Reviews

[Justin Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking Incredible.

[Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book of short stories that range from interesting to weird to disturbing. It was worth reading but I won't seek out other books by this author.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great selection of very different stories, some with a sci-fi edge, others gay-themed, and others quite experimental. Short story collections can be a bit hit and miss, but this was much more hit.