On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain - Hardcover

Monroe, Debra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870745603 ISBN 13: 9780870745607

Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press,U.S., 2010

Synopsis

Mired in debt and on the run from a series of broken homes, about-to-be-divorced Debra Monroe pulls up in front of a tumbledown cabin outside a small Texas town. Its isolation--miles from her teaching job in a neighbouring city--feels right. She buys the house and ultimately doubles its size as she waits for the call from the adoption agency to tell her she's going to be a mother. Now in her forties, she is swept into the strange new world of single motherhood, complicated by the fact that she's white and her daughter is black. As Monroe learns to deal with her daughter's hair and to re-enter the dating scene, all the while coping with her own and her daughter's major illnesses, they live under the magnified scrutiny of the small, conservative town. Confronting her past in order to make a better life for her daughter, Monroe rebuilds not only a half-ruined cabin in the woods but her sense of what it is that makes a sustainable family.

About this title

About the Authors

Debra Monroe lived in South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Utah, and North Carolina before moving to Texas in 1992. She is the author of four previous books, including two collections of stories, The Source of Trouble and A Wild, Cold State, and two novels, Newfangled and Shambles. Her books have been widely reviewed and have won many awards, including the Flannery O'Connor Award for Fiction, the John Gardner Fellowship, and The Violet Crown Award. Her books have appeared on "Best Ten" lists in Elle and Vanity Fair magazines and in Borders' "Original Voices" series. She has published fiction and nonfiction in many journals and magazines. She teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University and lives in Austin, Texas.

DEBRA MONROE grew up in Wisconsin and moved to Texas in 1992. She is the author of two collections of stories, The Source of Trouble, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award, and A Wild, Cold State, and two novels, Newfangled and Shambles. She teaches at Texas State University and lives in Austin, Texas.

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870745603
• ISBN 13: 9780870745607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264