Shebang

by Valerie Vogrin

<!-- FICTION--> When the matron of an Alabama catering family dies, Fin Sweetleaf, thirty-ish and single, inherits a business in disarray and a sixteen-year-old nephew yearning for normalcy. These two mismatched orphans, Fin and Hector Sweetleaf, must form a family in the wake of the domineering matron's death. In her debut novel, Shebang , acclaimed short story writer Valerie Vogrin tells a love story with a heroine who refuses to accept the plot line. Fin coasts. For saving the business, for forging a family with Hector, for becoming a meaningful guardian, she has no plan. Catering indiscriminately to everyone, to "the whole shebang," Fin accepts the friends and lovers who appear on the front porch and drift into her life. What begins as a near-empty house fills past capacity. Romantic advances tumble in a linen closet and lovemaking boils over onto kitchen counters. Longing for peace and any semblance of status quo, Hector endures yoga practice and poetry recitations, a trip to the emergency room and a home birth, feasts and fiascoes, trampoline tricks, and an amateur shot put contest. Steeped in the rough mysteries and quirkiness of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Shebang celebrates the intricate web of family life--the families we're born into, and the families we create out of necessity. Valerie Vogrin, an assistant professor of English at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, currently lives in St. Louis. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review , Ambergris , the Chattahoochee Review , and Playboy (winning the Playboy College Fiction Contest in 1988).

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 2004

About the author

Valerie Vogrin is the author of the novel Shebang. Her collection Things We’ll Need for the Coming Difficulties was awarded the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

Her short stories have appeared in print in journals such as Ploughshares, AGNI, and The Los Angeles Review, online at Hobart and Bluestem, and in The Best Small Fictions 2015. In 2010 she was awarded a Pushcart Prize.

She teaches creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She lives with her husband, dog, and cat on a tiny unnamed lake in Moro, Illinois.

Reviews

[Burma Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feel-good story, gorgeous language, unforgettable characters.

[lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second time reading this book written by an old high school friend. It's a story about family relationships–the families we're born into, and the families we make ourselves of people related to us or not. Valerie's writing is very evocative; she paints vivid pictures with her prose. Pictures saturated with color, like the painting on the cover. Also, it is a very beautiful book in and of itself. Lovely cover art, beautiful paper. Nice to hold in one's hand.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

my teacher wrote this book!!