* Longlisted for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction *
"The arrival of an amazing writer, fully formed, ready to blow you away."
-KEVIN WILSON
-KEVIN WILSON
*Featured in Foreword Reviews Debut Fiction Spotlight Issue, October 2017*
*An Anticipated Book of 2017, Memorious Magazine*
*Featured in Electric Literature's 2017 Great Indie Press Preview*
*American Booksellers Association Indiebound White Box, October 2017*
*Featured on NPR's Arts & Letters*
*Featured on NPR Affiliate KMUW, Wichita*
*A PBR Book Club selection*
*Featured on Lit Hub*
"It's entirely possible that a few years hence 'Woody Skinner'
might resonate in the same way 'Dave Eggers' and 'David
Sedaris' resonate ... He's funny and honest in the way our
most successful liars have always been ... You can recognize
yourself in these stories, make out your friends and neighbors,
feel your sensibilities merging with the insistent tug of
the narrative, so it feels less like you're reading some
authorial mind than daydreaming."
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
"Like episodes of a hit Netflix series, the tales
of A Thousand Distant Radios are hard
to take one at a time -- you'll want to binge them
in one sitting, eager to see the literary payoff of the
next strange thing. It's a strangeness that can leave
you breathless, delivered by a writer who is going places."
CHAPTER 16
"Weird and wonderful ...
A Thousand Distant Radios truly stands out."
FOREWORD REVIEWS
"If you like short stories that make you feel
strange and sad and wonderful, pick up
A Thousand Distant Radios. It's ten tales
of sublime surprise."
JASON HEADLEY,
writer & director of
A Bad Idea Gone Wrong and It's Not About the Nail
"We'd rather look out than in. Skinner compels us
to do otherwise ... These aren't voyeuristic peeks
into messed up lives. Skinner's
empathy is palpable."
FICTION WRITERS REVIEW
In a debut that has immediately sparked comparisons to the work of earlier masters, Woody Skinner makes his mark as a boldly imaginative new voice. Written with dark humor and folkloric flair, the stories in A Thousand Distant Radios capture the passions and compulsions of modern America in unforgettable imagery and saturated color.
A marlin swims circles in a luminous backyard pool; a small-town surgeon broods from the Olympus of his hilltop house, watched all the while by his neighbors below; a knife salesman plies blades of mythic sharpness while crisscrossing a crazed North American landscape like a mad Paul Bunyan; a young man in rural Arkansas nestles into a satellite dish; and a grandfather’s body lies in state amid Annie Oakley’s last buffalo kill, General Patton’s Persian rug, and countless other oddments of a legendary America.
Skewed, hyperbolical, sometimes surreal, always irresistible, here is fiction honed to cut through the blur of our times. You won’t soon forget this book.
A marlin swims circles in a luminous backyard pool; a small-town surgeon broods from the Olympus of his hilltop house, watched all the while by his neighbors below; a knife salesman plies blades of mythic sharpness while crisscrossing a crazed North American landscape like a mad Paul Bunyan; a young man in rural Arkansas nestles into a satellite dish; and a grandfather’s body lies in state amid Annie Oakley’s last buffalo kill, General Patton’s Persian rug, and countless other oddments of a legendary America.
Skewed, hyperbolical, sometimes surreal, always irresistible, here is fiction honed to cut through the blur of our times. You won’t soon forget this book.
Woody Skinner's work has won the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award and appeared in Mid-American Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Hobart, Booth, Another Chicago Magazine, River Styx, and elsewhere. He holds a BA in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi, an MFA from Wichita State University, and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Originally from Batesville, Arkansas, he currently lives in Chicago.
Praise for A Thousand Distant Radios:
"The conceits at the heart of Skinner's stories are not the usual fare...
As in a poem, no word appears by chance, and the rules of the
everyday world may or may not apply. ... The mundane may become
magical, or the magical mundane, but it's the shift in balance
that delights the reader. ... Like episodes of a hit Netflix series, the tales
of A Thousand Distant Radios are hard to take one at a time -- you'll
want to binge them in one sitting, eager to see the literary payoff of the
next strange thing. It's a strangeness that can leave you breathless,
delivered by a writer who is going places."
Michael Ray Taylor, CHAPTER 16
"It's entirely possible that a few years hence 'Woody Skinner'
might resonate in the same way 'Dave Eggers' and 'David
Sedaris' resonate ... Because he's funny and honest in the way our
most successful liars have always been, he's able to shuffle reality,
to select and arrange specifics in such a way as they reflect and honor
the quirkiness of human life. ... You can recognize yourself in these stories,
make out your friends and neighbors, feel your sensibilities merging with
the insistent tug of the narrative, so it feels less like you're reading some
authorial mind than daydreaming. ... There's a hint of wistfulness in some of
[Skinner's stories] but no sentimentality, and every now and again some
disturbing violent thing breaks through, something as ludicrous and sad as
'an old man with a temper like a teenage boy's.' Skinner has
some keen and lethal potential. There will be blood."
Philip Martin, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
"TV figures prominently in A Thousand Distant Radios. Often on in the
background, its meaning is foregrounded, reflecting our contemporary
distance from ourselves. We'd rather look out than in. Skinner compels
us to do otherwise. ... These aren't voyeuristic peeks into messed up lives.
Skinner's empathy is palpable. ... Desire and tension dignify these
downtrodden characters and make them relatable. With humor and satire,
Skinner thumbs his nose at the chaotic existence with which we're all
familiar. ... We can't win, but we won't lose, either,
with Skinner to tell the tale."
Mari Carlson, FICTION WRITERS REVIEW
"A deft sense of humor, a distinctive voice...Skinner keeps the realism
in his magical realism, creat[ing] something weird and wonderful. ...
A Thousand Distant Radios truly stands out."
FOREWORD REVIEWS, Debut Fiction Spotlight Issue, Oct. 2017
"Complex and intriguing...unconventional. ... The reader can't help
but crawl inside the minds of [Skinner's] characters and care for them,
sometimes unexpectedly, maybe even unwillingly. In reading these
stories, you might just 'let the whole universe pass through you.'"
Rebecca Hannigan, Into the Void Magazine
"Woody Skinner's characters manage to be both wonderfully absurd
and absurdly normal. They remind us of our common humanity
even as we watch them navigate their impossible, sad and
surprising lives. A Thousand Distant Radios is a
beautifully strange collection of stories."
MARGARET MALONE, author of People Like You,
PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist
“Woody Skinner’s stories are sly, tragic, violent, beautiful.
This is a powerful and disturbing collection, the most
gripping work I’ve read in some time.”
ELIZABETH McKENZIE, author of The Portable Veblen,
longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award
"Woody Skinner has a heat gun and he will strip the varnish
off your soul. You’ll laugh while it’s happening and
when he’s done you’ll feel more real."
SCOTT SPARLING, author of Wire to Wire
"[A Thousand Distant Radios] has all of the energy and inventiveness
of a debut but without any of the indulgences or shortcuts.
The stories are wise, accomplished, and deeply satisfying.
Woody Skinner has remarkable aim, yes, but he also
knows what to aim at."
CHRIS BACHELDER
author of The Throwback Special,
2016 National Book Award Finalist
"A Thousand Distant Radios is an extravagantly weird book.
Woody Skinner is a singular talent, and I'm glad to have found his stories."
KYLE MINOR, author of Praying Drunk
"Woody Skinner possesses such a mesmerizing gift with language that
it's hard not to invoke writers like Barry Hannah and Joy Williams, but
Skinner has a voice that is uniquely his own, fueled by a deceptive humor
and a thrumming intensity that pulls you along. These are stories that
are wild and open-hearted, full of characters who are always trying to,
as Skinner puts it, just make it happen. A Thousand Distant Radios announces
the arrival of an amazing writer, fully formed, ready to blow you away."
KEVIN WILSON, author of Perfect Little World and The Family Fang
"I love Woody Skinner’s deft, ironic writing; he’s like a literary country doctor,
giving you the bad news so gently you barely notice how much it hurts.
Inventive, emotional, and shruggingly comic, these stories give us a 21st-century
American South populated by characters — a plumber, a knife salesman,
a reluctant catfish farmer — who regret their mistakes while they wait in vain
for their real lives to start: people, that is, like you and me.”
J. ROBERT LENNON, author of Familiar and Broken River
"Skinner’s work is reminiscent of other great voice-driven
comic writers of the American South: Barry Hannah, Donald Barthelme,
Padgett Powell. Like these writers, Skinner, winner of Mid-American
Review’s Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, is funny, sure, but also
capable of affecting pathos within the strangest of premises.
In the title story, a man goes about burning his grandfather’s body
by pouring gasoline into his mouth: 'I bent over his body, pressed my ear
onto his bloated belly, and listened to the gasoline slurp and fizz inside
of him. It sounded like the static of a thousand distant radios,
like stories and sounds refusing to take shape.' What follows is a
meditation on death and the unbearable weight of American history.
If his title story is any indication, the stories that do take shape in this
collection will be wildly inventive and darkly comic, but always moving."
-Brian Trapp, fiction editor Memorious
"Brian Trapp's Anticipated Books of 2017"
As in a poem, no word appears by chance, and the rules of the
everyday world may or may not apply. ... The mundane may become
magical, or the magical mundane, but it's the shift in balance
that delights the reader. ... Like episodes of a hit Netflix series, the tales
of A Thousand Distant Radios are hard to take one at a time -- you'll
want to binge them in one sitting, eager to see the literary payoff of the
next strange thing. It's a strangeness that can leave you breathless,
delivered by a writer who is going places."
Michael Ray Taylor, CHAPTER 16
"It's entirely possible that a few years hence 'Woody Skinner'
might resonate in the same way 'Dave Eggers' and 'David
Sedaris' resonate ... Because he's funny and honest in the way our
most successful liars have always been, he's able to shuffle reality,
to select and arrange specifics in such a way as they reflect and honor
the quirkiness of human life. ... You can recognize yourself in these stories,
make out your friends and neighbors, feel your sensibilities merging with
the insistent tug of the narrative, so it feels less like you're reading some
authorial mind than daydreaming. ... There's a hint of wistfulness in some of
[Skinner's stories] but no sentimentality, and every now and again some
disturbing violent thing breaks through, something as ludicrous and sad as
'an old man with a temper like a teenage boy's.' Skinner has
some keen and lethal potential. There will be blood."
Philip Martin, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
"TV figures prominently in A Thousand Distant Radios. Often on in the
background, its meaning is foregrounded, reflecting our contemporary
distance from ourselves. We'd rather look out than in. Skinner compels
us to do otherwise. ... These aren't voyeuristic peeks into messed up lives.
Skinner's empathy is palpable. ... Desire and tension dignify these
downtrodden characters and make them relatable. With humor and satire,
Skinner thumbs his nose at the chaotic existence with which we're all
familiar. ... We can't win, but we won't lose, either,
with Skinner to tell the tale."
Mari Carlson, FICTION WRITERS REVIEW
"A deft sense of humor, a distinctive voice...Skinner keeps the realism
in his magical realism, creat[ing] something weird and wonderful. ...
A Thousand Distant Radios truly stands out."
FOREWORD REVIEWS, Debut Fiction Spotlight Issue, Oct. 2017
"Complex and intriguing...unconventional. ... The reader can't help
but crawl inside the minds of [Skinner's] characters and care for them,
sometimes unexpectedly, maybe even unwillingly. In reading these
stories, you might just 'let the whole universe pass through you.'"
Rebecca Hannigan, Into the Void Magazine
"Woody Skinner's characters manage to be both wonderfully absurd
and absurdly normal. They remind us of our common humanity
even as we watch them navigate their impossible, sad and
surprising lives. A Thousand Distant Radios is a
beautifully strange collection of stories."
MARGARET MALONE, author of People Like You,
PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist
“Woody Skinner’s stories are sly, tragic, violent, beautiful.
This is a powerful and disturbing collection, the most
gripping work I’ve read in some time.”
ELIZABETH McKENZIE, author of The Portable Veblen,
longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award
"Woody Skinner has a heat gun and he will strip the varnish
off your soul. You’ll laugh while it’s happening and
when he’s done you’ll feel more real."
SCOTT SPARLING, author of Wire to Wire
"[A Thousand Distant Radios] has all of the energy and inventiveness
of a debut but without any of the indulgences or shortcuts.
The stories are wise, accomplished, and deeply satisfying.
Woody Skinner has remarkable aim, yes, but he also
knows what to aim at."
CHRIS BACHELDER
author of The Throwback Special,
2016 National Book Award Finalist
"A Thousand Distant Radios is an extravagantly weird book.
Woody Skinner is a singular talent, and I'm glad to have found his stories."
KYLE MINOR, author of Praying Drunk
"Woody Skinner possesses such a mesmerizing gift with language that
it's hard not to invoke writers like Barry Hannah and Joy Williams, but
Skinner has a voice that is uniquely his own, fueled by a deceptive humor
and a thrumming intensity that pulls you along. These are stories that
are wild and open-hearted, full of characters who are always trying to,
as Skinner puts it, just make it happen. A Thousand Distant Radios announces
the arrival of an amazing writer, fully formed, ready to blow you away."
KEVIN WILSON, author of Perfect Little World and The Family Fang
"I love Woody Skinner’s deft, ironic writing; he’s like a literary country doctor,
giving you the bad news so gently you barely notice how much it hurts.
Inventive, emotional, and shruggingly comic, these stories give us a 21st-century
American South populated by characters — a plumber, a knife salesman,
a reluctant catfish farmer — who regret their mistakes while they wait in vain
for their real lives to start: people, that is, like you and me.”
J. ROBERT LENNON, author of Familiar and Broken River
"Skinner’s work is reminiscent of other great voice-driven
comic writers of the American South: Barry Hannah, Donald Barthelme,
Padgett Powell. Like these writers, Skinner, winner of Mid-American
Review’s Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, is funny, sure, but also
capable of affecting pathos within the strangest of premises.
In the title story, a man goes about burning his grandfather’s body
by pouring gasoline into his mouth: 'I bent over his body, pressed my ear
onto his bloated belly, and listened to the gasoline slurp and fizz inside
of him. It sounded like the static of a thousand distant radios,
like stories and sounds refusing to take shape.' What follows is a
meditation on death and the unbearable weight of American history.
If his title story is any indication, the stories that do take shape in this
collection will be wildly inventive and darkly comic, but always moving."
-Brian Trapp, fiction editor Memorious
"Brian Trapp's Anticipated Books of 2017"
ISBN: 978-0-9893023-9-5
5.5 x 8.5 paperback
November 2017
5.5 x 8.5 paperback
November 2017
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