Horses All Over Hell: Stories - Hardcover

by Ryan Blacketter (Author)

Horses All Over Hell follows the twin tensions of Marty's drinking and Joanna's newfound religious sobriety--in a small Idaho city on the Snake in the early nineties. In "Starlings," Marty and Aunt Darlene enter Joanna's bedroom with a sack of beer late at night, seeking to revive her old, drinking self. "They Work at Night" features Marty's escalating drinking. Also presented is Joanna's intense new friendship with an artist named Lucy. In "Sending Those People Home," ten-year-old Cory laments that his mom isn't like the other church mothers. He keeps her best photographs under his bed. Despite this family's troubles, and whatever their fate, they ache for each other and make their own, often poignant gestures toward love.

Author Biography

A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Ryan Blacketter is the author of the novel Down in the River. He has received a literary grant from Oregon Arts and Culture Council and a prison-teaching grant from the Idaho Humanities Council. He works as a mentor for PEN America's prison writing program. A Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee, he has read story manuscripts at Tin House and taught creative writing in Portland high schools through WITS.