I WAS REVOLUTIONARY: Stories - Softcover

Milward, Andrew Malan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062377329 ISBN 13: 9780062377326

Publisher: Perennial, 2016

Synopsis

A richly textured, diverse collection of stories that illuminate the heartland and America itself, exploring questions of history, race, and identity.

Grounded in place, spanning the Civil War to the present day, the stories in I Was a Revolutionary capture the roil of history through the eyes of an unforgettable cast of characters: the visionaries and dreamers, radical farmers and socialist journalists, quack doctors and protestors who haunt the past and present landscape of the state of Kansas.

In these stories--which have appeared in Zoetrope All-Story, The Best New American Voices, FiveChapters, Story, American Short Fiction, and Ninth Letter--the award-winning writer Andrew Malan Milward crafts an epic mosaic of the American experience, tracing how we live amid the inconvenient ghosts of history. "The Burning of Lawrence" vibrates with the raw terror of a town pillaged by pro-Confederate raiders. "O Death" recalls the desperately hard journey of the Exodusters--African-American migrants who came to Kansas to escape oppression in the South. And, in the collection's haunting title piece, a professor of Kansas history surveys his decades-long slide from radicalism to complacency, a shift that parallels the landscape around him.

Using his own home state as a prism through which to view both a nation's history and our own universal battles as individuals, Milward has created one of the freshest and most complex story collections in recent years.

About this title

Review:

"The rich, brutal history of Kansas ignites--and propels--the eight stories that make up Andrew Malan Milward's accomplished second collection. By its conclusion, the reader is left considering many questions of history, identity, race, and how we retell these stories to others and ourselves."--Boston Globe

"Riveting fiction in which Milward's fascination with his home state's history serves the plot and characters rather than the other way around. . . . unlike many young writers, his gaze isn't directed at his own navel, but outward at the rough, strange history of the state that formed him."--The Millions

"I Was a Revolutionary is a fast-paced page-turner of a book, with Milward weaving together fictional narrative, historical fact and illusory anecdotes so seamlessly you won't be aware of how much you've read or learned until you're already done."--Bookreporter.com

"He sets a standard for the story collection. This collection brims with accessible originality, unparalleled range and thought-provoking heartbreak. . . . Like E.L. Doctorow in 'Ragtime, ' Milward fashions high art from historical events and figures."--Jackson Clarion-Ledger

"In this brilliant, inventive collection, Milward channels ghosts from his native Kansas into eight stories that could spring only from that fraught border of the Civil War."--New York Times Book Review

"This is an evocative and provoking collection, full of Andrew Milward's inventive craft."--New York Journal of Books

"The eight stories in Milward's collection don't just use history as a jumping-off point, they also raise questions about the nature of recorded history. Each one feels as complete and complex as a novel. This collection is sharp, shrewd, and consistently thought provoking."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The challenge of turning history into short stories is met by Milward, who mines his home state, Kansas, to put life into characters pulled from time's landslide. . . . With his portrayal of conscience-ridden individuals navigating historical forces, Milward has achieved a landmark feat in fiction."--Asheville Citizen-Times

"Throughout the book, Milward makes astute observations about politics, not only about the political climate of past eras but also of our own-a rarity in contemporary American fiction."--BookPage

"[I Was A Revolutionary] is a book about history: how the past is viewed, how that view changes with time and from viewer to viewer, and what those changes mean....fascinating."--AV Club

From the Back Cover:

Winner of the Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award

Grounded in place, spanning the Civil War to the present day, the stories in I Was a Revolutionary capture the roil of history through the eyes of an unforgettable cast of characters: the visionaries and dreamers, the radical farmers and socialist journalists, the quack doctors and protesters who haunt the past and present landscape of the American heartland.

In these stories, each set in the author's home state of Kansas, Andrew Malan Milward traces how we live amid the inconvenient ghosts of history. "The Burning of Lawrence" vibrates with the raw terror of a town pillaged by pro-Confederate raiders. "O Death" recalls the harrowing, desperate journey of the exodusters--African-American migrants who came to Kansas to escape oppression in the South. And, in the collection's haunting title piece, a professor of Kansas history surveys his decades-long slide from radicalism to complacency, a shift that parallels the landscape around him.

Using his own home state as a prism through which to view both a nation's history and our own universal battles as individuals, Milward has created a fresh and complex new palimpsest of the American experience.

About this edition

• Publisher: Perennial
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0062377329
• ISBN 13: 9780062377326
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288