Scattered Lights, Steve Wiegenstein
Scattered Lights, Steve Wiegenstein
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Scattered Lights

Author: Steve Wiegenstein

Narrator: Steve Wiegenstein

Unabridged: 6 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/08/2021


Synopsis

This collection of stories brings together a wide cast of characters, all connected to the Ozarks - natives and transplants, young and old, wicked and innocent, troubled and happy, God-haunted and just plain haunted. These stories range over human experience from madness to reconciliation and everything in between, told in precise, poetic language that leaves a permanent impression. Finalist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. "[Wiegenstein] presents us with dozens of distinctive and real people doing their best, or not so best, but intermittently asking the same questions all of us do – why are we here, who loves us, what do we owe each other, what does it mean to be good? . . . The pared, beautiful prose of Scattered Lights comes to seem less a style than an ethic – not to intrude, but to observe; not to judge, but to comprehend. The project founded on a final faith, present in great writers of short fiction, from Chekov to Grace Paley, to another of this year’s finalists Deesha Philyaw, that art is where our higher selves can meet, free from the transient furies of the news. The sooner we begin paying attention to each other as people, Wiegenstein argues, the more people we suddenly begin to see, no matter where we're from." - From the PEN/Faulkner Award commendation.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael

These were some beautifully written short stories about the Ozarks, an area of the US that remains a complete mystery to me (mostly parts of Arkansas and Missouri if I correctly understood). The story moods are contemplative, but with nice prose and interesting characters. Probably a better short st......more

Goodreads review by Aarik

This is more like 4 1/2 stars. A near-perfect collection which exchanges stereotypes for imaginative renderings of life's last-place finishers. Wiegenstein knows the rural American experience like the back of his hand, showing the requisite amount of affection and critique—but surprising you with ho......more

Goodreads review by Craig

Wiegenstein lives in the Ozarks, and his fiction is largely set in the region, which was my main motivation for reading this collection of stories. Many of these have been previously published in literary reviews and journals, mostly in the Midwest. Wiegenstein's characters often seem to be searchin......more

Goodreads review by Taskgal

I've recently come to enjoy and appreciate the short story format which only deepened with this collection. I do live in Missouri, although not in the Ozarks, so a disclaimer and bit of fondness for the settings and people in the book. Simple people are rarely one-dimensional and neither is life reg......more