Books by Shann Ray
McSweeney's Issue 12
by Dave Eggers, Ben Ehrenreich, Rachel Sherman, Shann Ray, Andy Lamey, Wythe Marschall, Steve Stiefel, John Henry Fleming, Andrea Deszo, Champ Simpson
Issue 12 is made up of three parts. The first and largest section consists entirely of new writers -- new to us, probably new to you, and not even well-known by their own families.Part two is a new story from Roddy Doyle, featuring Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments.Part three is a collection of twenty-minute stories, by which we mean stories written in twenty minutes, from all sorts of people that you know and do not know.
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American Masculine: Stories
by Shann Ray
Winner of the 2010 Bakeless Prize for Fiction, a muscular debut that reconfigures the American West
The American West has long been a place where myth and legend have flourished. Where men stood tall and lived rough. But that West is no more. In its place Shann Ray finds washedup basketball players, businessmen hiding addictions, and women fighting the inexplicable violence that wells up in these men. A son struggles to accept his father's apologies after surviving a childhood of beatings. Two men seek empty basketball hoops on a snowy night, hoping to relive past glory. A bull rider skips town and rides herd on an unruly mob of passengers as he searches for a thief on a train threading through Montana's Rocky Mountains.
In these stories, Ray grapples with the terrible hurt we inflict on those we love, and finds that reconciliation, if far off, is at least possible. The debut of a writer who is out to redefine the contours of the American West, American Masculine is a deeply felt and fiercely written ode to the country we left behind.
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Where Blackbirds Fly: A Novel
by Shann Ray
A novel in five novellas, Where Blackbirds Fly offers a prismatic deep dive into the human heart through fierce narratives of intimacy both lovely and heartbreaking. Countering social upheavals, Shann Ray affirms the power of empathy, the wisdom of wilderness, and the felt presence of divine mystery echoed in the recurring appearances of blackbirds, as if etching flight patterns of mercy over the landscapes of human life. John Sender and Samantha Valeria Arrarás seek love in the financial industry, their initial attraction leading to unforeseen perils that will echo in those who enter and exit their lives. The characters of this novel form a compelling cross section of humanity met with revelation, suffering, and possibility. With spare and muscular prose, luminosity, and psychological grace, Ray weaves a tapestry as multihued as America in a vision of love’s transgressive power.
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