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What We Won't Do
Winner of the 2000 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction
Welcome to the strange, wonderful world of Brock Clarke. Here you will meet florists, dental hygienists, high school teachers, and peddlers of porno novelty items, all trying to be normal, good people and failing miserably. Reaffirming that "life, at its core, is embarrassing," What We Won't Do is a collection of tales about the miseries of the average, blue-collar worker who is anything but average. Here is a portrait of the Homer Simpsons and Archie Bunkers of the world, Knut Hamson style. These stories are more than insightful; they're downright funny.
"The honesty herein is not the sugarcoated sort, it's the sort that exacts revenge by goading others into doing what we can't or won't do ourselves. . . . You haven't read these stories before, and that's the highest compliment that I can pay them. That and the fact that they made me laugh, out loud, and frightened me a little, and still do."—from the Foreword by Mark Richard
Marketing plans for What We Won't Do:
• Author tour in South Carolina (Clemson, Greenville), and upstate New York (Syracuse, Rochester).
• Will coordinate additional tour with Harcourt upon release of his novel, The Ordinary White Boy, in September 2001.
• Newsletter, brochure, catalog, and postcard mailings.
• Advertisements in key literary and trade magazines.
Brock Clarke is from upstate New York. He received his Ph.D. in English at the University of Rochester, and is currently an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Clemson University. He has received awards from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the New York State Writers' Institute. He lives with his wife, Lane, and their son Quinn in Clemson, South Carolina.
Welcome to the strange, wonderful world of Brock Clarke. Here you will meet florists, dental hygienists, high school teachers, and peddlers of porno novelty items, all trying to be normal, good people and failing miserably. Reaffirming that "life, at its core, is embarrassing," What We Won't Do is a collection of tales about the miseries of the average, blue-collar worker who is anything but average. Here is a portrait of the Homer Simpsons and Archie Bunkers of the world, Knut Hamson style. These stories are more than insightful; they're downright funny.
"The honesty herein is not the sugarcoated sort, it's the sort that exacts revenge by goading others into doing what we can't or won't do ourselves. . . . You haven't read these stories before, and that's the highest compliment that I can pay them. That and the fact that they made me laugh, out loud, and frightened me a little, and still do."—from the Foreword by Mark Richard
Marketing plans for What We Won't Do:
• Author tour in South Carolina (Clemson, Greenville), and upstate New York (Syracuse, Rochester).
• Will coordinate additional tour with Harcourt upon release of his novel, The Ordinary White Boy, in September 2001.
• Newsletter, brochure, catalog, and postcard mailings.
• Advertisements in key literary and trade magazines.
Brock Clarke is from upstate New York. He received his Ph.D. in English at the University of Rochester, and is currently an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Clemson University. He has received awards from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the New York State Writers' Institute. He lives with his wife, Lane, and their son Quinn in Clemson, South Carolina.
- GenresShort Stories
158 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2002
1 person is currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Brock Clarke
20 books126 followersBrock Clarke is the author of seven books of fiction, most recently a collection of short stories, The Price of the Haircut. His novels include The Happiest People in the World, Exley (which was a Kirkus Book of the Year, a finalist for the Maine Book Award, and a longlist finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (which was a national bestseller, and American Library Associate Notable Book of the Year, a #1 Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices in Fiction selection, and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice pick). His books have been reprinted in a dozen international editions, and have been awarded the Mary McCarthy Prize for Fiction, the Prairie Schooner Book Series Prize, a National Endowment for Arts Fellowship, and an Ohio Council for the Arts Fellowship, among others.
Clarke’s individual stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, The Believer, Georgia Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and have appeared in the annual Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.
Clarke lives in Portland, Maine and teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College and in The University of Tampa’s low residency MFA program.
Clarke’s individual stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, The Believer, Georgia Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and have appeared in the annual Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.
Clarke lives in Portland, Maine and teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College and in The University of Tampa’s low residency MFA program.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 17, 2013
This is Brock Clarke's first book but I've just now gotten around to reading it. The first few stories fell a little flat on me as they seemed all to center around the same theme of men who drink themselves to destruction that has proliferated for what is now over half a century at least. But then as we got farther into the book the stories got better and better, the theme becoming clearer, the writing sharper, and the questions that every one of these character ends with at the end is both surprising and inevitable, both obvious and profound. I enjoyed it.
September 29, 2010
Interesting, inventive stories, set against the backdrop of paper mill workers, disillusioned journalists and failed teachers. My observations are that the male characters are frequently depressed, sometimes alcoholic and self-destructive, and that the women are disappointed and frequently leave the main characters. Recurring themes: "Why can't we be better people?" "What can you count on?" "What won't we do to hurt each other?"
September 12, 2016
Anderson's Winesburg. Cheever's Shady Hill. And now Clarke's Little Falls. Though it may seem over-exaggerated praise, I am willing to place Brock Clarke's early story cycle right in line with some of the other "Bards of Small Town/Suburban Experience." An insightful collection filled with compelling anti-heroes doing unexpected yet understandable things. This collection gives the reader a new set of lenses through which to view his/her own seemingly daily existence. Truly spectacular.
January 22, 2010
Winner of the 2000 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Selected by Mark Richard
January 28, 2015
Outstanding upstate NY writer. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews