Fckface, Leah Hampton
Fckface, Leah Hampton
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F*ckface
And Other Stories

Author: Leah Hampton

Narrator: Sophie Amoss

Unabridged: 6 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/14/2020


Synopsis

F*ckface 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 collection—some comedic, some tragic, many both at once—examine 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 husband’s 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 that’s 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

About Leah Hampton

Leah Hampton is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and the winner of the University of Texas’s Keene Prize for Literature, as well as North Carolina’s James Hurst and Doris Betts prizes. Her work has appeared in storySouth, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Appalachian Heritage, North Carolina Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times, Ecotone, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. A former college instructor, Hampton lives in and writes about the Blue Ridge Mountains.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela M on August 27, 2020

3.5 stars rounded up. I find it difficult to rate short story collections because it’s rare that I like every story. There were some stories here that left me at the end of them unsatisfied, wanting more, with the feeling they were just too short. I won’t remember much about those. On the other hand,......more

Goodreads review by Karen on August 23, 2020

4.5 This is a collection of 12 short stories set in rural Appalachia. I enjoyed them all, some really left me wanting more, which is why I don’t normally gravitate towards the short story genre and that’s the only reason this didn’t get a full 5 stars from me. There are flawed characters and wonderful......more

Goodreads review by David on January 27, 2020

As fine a collection as you are ever likely to encounter. Leah Hampton may very well be Appalachia's finest story writer at work.......more

Goodreads review by Ben on December 06, 2021

Not gonna lie… This might’ve been one of the best short story collections I’ve read in a long time. May not be for everyone, it’s not horror or thriller, it’s not schlock or transgressive despite the book title, it felt so authentic and honest with stories that range from sad to humorous. It’s all a......more

Goodreads review by Brooke on January 18, 2021

I don’t often call short story collections perfect, but F*ckface is joining my ranks as a perfect short story collection. Despite growing up in East Tennessee, I ashamedly have not delved into a lot of southern or Appalachian literature. It’s very easy to stereotype a region - even when you’re of it......more


Quotes

“Hampton writes about Appalachia with such sharpness, such clear-eyed compassion. These stories are deceptively simple—a firefighter’s marriage dissolves, a woman meets an old classmate, a beloved coworker quits—until they are not. These stories take you apart slowly, piece by piece, and by the time you realise what’s happening, it’s already too late. The stories are in your blood now. They live in you, with all their strangeness and decay, isolation and comfort, hellscapes and moments of grace.”
– Rachel Heng, author of Suicide Club


“In a voice firmly grounded and unwavering, Leah Hampton writes with an honesty and authority seldom realized so early in a career. These stories are fully matured, raising big questions, providing no easy answers, and leaving us to linger for more. Hampton has staked her claim as a writer to watch and I for one will not turn away.”
– David Joy, author of The Line That Held Us