Trouble No More

by Anthony Grooms

Second Edition of Anthony Groom's award-winning collection of short stories, Trouble No More, set throughout the American South, presents stories that engage with history, politics, class, race, childhood, and life. They are the personal and public troubles of the African American middle class. These stories are about families, intact and estranged, about ordinary lives in extraordinary times.

Genres: Short Stories, Historical Fiction, African American

204 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1996

About the author

Anthony Grooms grew up in rural Virginia. His education at the College of William and Mary and George Mason University led him to a teaching career in Georgia, where since 1995, he has taught creative writing and literature at Kennesaw State University, and directs its M. A. in Professional Writing Program. He is the author of Ice Poems, Trouble No More: Stories and Bombingham, a novel. His stories and poems have been published in Callaloo, African American Review, Crab Orchard Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. Writing in MELUS, a critical journal of multi-ethnic literature, Professor Diptiranjan Pattanaik said that Trouble No More demonstrates “the insider’s profound knowledge of the history and struggles of African Americans, while consistently managing to circumscribe a breadth of understanding with a tender story-telling art.” Reviewing Bombingham for the Washington Post, critic Jabari Asim wrote, "In its insistence that 'the world is a tumultuous place and every soul in it suffers,' this powerful, resonant novel offers no consolations. Grooms offers consolation, however, in allowing us to be present at the emergence of a brave and promising talent.” Grooms is a Fulbright Fellow, a Yaddo Fellow, a Hurston-Wright Foundation Legacy Award finalist, an Arts Administration Fellow from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the recipient of two Lillian Smith Awards from the Southern Regional Council. Both Trouble No More and Bombingham were selected as All Georgia Reads books. Adopted for study in colleges, Bombingham was the 2013 common book selection for Washington, D. C. The Vain Conversation, a novel, is scheduled to be published by Story River Books (USC Press) in fall 2017. Currently, Grooms is finishing novels about Black Americans in Sweden and school desegregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

Reviews

[Sally Kilpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories from this book will make their way into the canon. I have the sinking feeling Tony Grooms may not be properly appreciated in his own time.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that made me aware of how valuable short stories are. More than any other African American fiction I've read, this book took me into the heart of the civil rights struggle and made me intensely aware of the many conflicting thoughts and feelings driving everyday choices for people in the black community at the time. If you haven't read Tony Grooms, you are missing out on a gem!

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great stories in this collection. "Jack and Jill" is one I will likely use in the literature courses I teach.

[Naveen Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read

[Nandi Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this some time ago. One of the stories that got me was the one with the two ladies on front that were trying to intergrate a little restaurant, but the lady there serving them was just as powerless to do anything for them as well. I could see the tug of war between both of parties and the outcome of the story. Interesting book.