Super America: Stories

by Anne Panning

In settings as different as Honolulu, Hawaii, small-town Minnesota, and Taxco, Mexico, these nine stories and a novella show blue-collar characters struggling to achieve the American Dream--and sometimes alienating friends and family as they try to upgrade their working-class pedigree. Anne Panning's people, despite their mixed record of success, make us root for them on their sometimes heartbreaking journeys of entrepreneurship, love, and loss.
In "Tidal Wave Wedding" a tsunami in Honolulu yields surprising results for a couple on their honeymoon. In "All-U-Can-Eat," a woman tries to stave off the investment of her inheritance into a restaurant specializing in frog legs. In the novella, "Freeze," a teenage son's future is forever complicated after a "life altering" accident confines his father to a wheelchair and accelerates the disintegration of his parents' marriage. An eerie clinical replay of another accident--this one on a bicycle in Hawaii--is at the center of "What Happened," and in the title story a college theater major gets caught up in his father's exotic pets scheme.
Panning's stories show an acute awareness of place, and--whether it be a seventeenth-century former-monastery in Mexico, a suburban housing development in Minnesota, or a hard-luck laundromat on the Oregon coast--each setting often tells us something about the characters who occupy them. Sometimes sad and often funny, Super America takes risks with our notions about the American Dream through characters caught between their working-class roots and grandiose visions.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

232 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Shahla Iqbal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. Most stories are gloomy overall but they do give a look inside many different lives in small towns across the United States. The stories had a morbid fascination to them - I could not wait to see what happened next. Some of them had abrupt endings but that I realise is part of the author's style- giving you a snapshot of someone's life.

[Pam Herrmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of short stories varying from a bicycle accident in Hawaii to a start up frog leg restaurant to a couple who are evacuated during a tidal wave. Each story envelopes you on an adventure to a new destination and story line.
Bonus: Went to school with the author for 12 years!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded to 4.0 stars - I normally don't read or enjoy short stories, so this book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There were some common themes between the ten stories, two took place in Hawai'i - "Tidal Wave Wedding" and "What Happened" and two dealt with devastating bicycle accidents "What Happened" and the novella "Freeze." All were glimpses into what could have been my life or yours. And all had some academic connection - a college student or professor. I enjoyed many of them, but my favorites were "Five Reasons I Miss the Laundromat" and the novella. The laundromat story brought me back to a time in my life when I occasionally would find myself hauling a week's worth of clothing for a family of six, sometimes with one or more of the kids to help, but more often by myself. In a way, it was a respite from a busy family life. The novella, one of several set in a Monroe County college town (Brockport?) spoke to me of a time when I was the person putting on the brave face, managing people and things, while my husband was trying not to die. And like Peter, coming home on Thanksgiving, but not out of the woods yet.
Tomorrow, the college library's book club will meet virtually to discuss this book, written by one of our own faculty. It will be interesting to hear their take, and as Anne is facilitating this, to learn more about it from the author, herself.
AtY #33: A collection of short stories, essays, or poetry
Book 43 of 2021

[Candace H-H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but some stories were more captivating than others. I liked the quirky stories the most, like the one about the frog legs or the tidal wave wedding. A couple stories had outdated terminology like “midget” and saying a woman was “dressed like a man”.

[SandyL · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not big on short stories to begin with, and I didn't see the point in any of these stories. I needed this book for a challenge, otherwise I wouldn't have continued on with it.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains nine entertaining and witty stories, most all of them of higher quality than those in Panning's first collection (a collection in which only the first story stuck out to me). But beyond these nine fun stories is a novella that concludes the whole, a novella that is anything but witty--it is, rather, heartbreaking, reminding me of some of the damaged people and damaged love that occurs in Hester Kaplan's collection The Edge of Marriage. In Panning's novella "Freeze," a father's accident complicates the family dynamic in ways that the mere end of a marriage would not have.

On my reread a decade later: The short stories are good, but it's the novella at the end that really makes this work stand out. The title story involves a dad seeking exotic animals for his wife, a collector. “Hillbillies” is about a upscale family trying to befriend the rednecks who move in nextdoor (via inheritance) and some very unwelcome news that puts a a whole new light on why the neighborhood is going to the pits. “All-U-Can-Eat” is about a get-rich-quick scheme involved fast-food frog legs. “Pinned”—my favorite of the short stories—is about the heart wanting what it wants, despite all logic to the contrary. “What Happened” struggles to explain grief. “Tidal Wave Wedding” involves getting married during an tsunami. “Chiclets” is about being in over one's head overseas when misfortune strikes. “Cravings” is about two sisters, one hot, one not, and their competition for a man. “Five Reasons I Miss the Laundromat” is a series of vignettes, memories, involving public laundry facilities. “Freeze,” the novella, like so many of the stories, especially “What Happened,” takes an accident and explores its various ramifications on a family, but given the space to breathe, as it is given, it's able to really dwell in that grief and trouble, and wow. Beyond that, with the limited narrative perspective, there are elements of the story that are just out of reach, little facts we can't ever be quite sure of, that mimic how we feel through any such tragedy, the longing to escape and the inability to.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved these stories. The characters seemed to be closely observing their lives from the outside and then commenting on them. I saw Panning compared to Lorrie Moore, and the authors do share a similar sense of gallows humor. The first story, about a man who tries to win back his exotic-pet-loving ex-wife by adopting a lemur and a miniature horse, will give you a good idea of whether you'll like the collection as a whole.

[Kathy Junior · Rating 4 out of 5]

quirky and interesting.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great set of short stories...very different and worth reading!

[Sarah Hart]

LOVE!!!