Fckface: And Other Stories

About this book

Named a Best Book of 2020 by Slate Electric Literature and PopMatters Fckface is a brassy bighearted debut collection of twelve short stories about rurality corpses honeybee collapse and illicit sex in post-coal Appalachia. The twelve stories in this knockout collectionsome comedic some tragic many both at onceexamine the interdependence between rural denizens and their environment. A young girl desperate for a way out of her small town finds support in an unlikely place. A ranger working along the Blue Ridge Parkway realizes that the dark side of the job the all too frequent discovery of dead bodies has taken its toll on her. Haunted by his past and his future a tech sergeant reluctantly spends a night with his estranged parents before being deployed to Afghanistan. Nearing fifty and facing new medical problems a woman wonders if her short stint at the local chemical plant is to blame. A woman takes her husbands research partner on a day trip to her favorite place on earth Dollywood and briefly imagines a different life. In the vein of Bonnie Jo Campbell and Lee Smith Leah Hampton writes poignantly and honestly about a legendary place thats rapidly changing. She takes us deep inside the lives of the women and men of Appalachia while navigating the realities of modern life with wit bite and heart.