Showing results by publisher "Scribd Audio" in Short Stories

The veil between the living and the dead is obscured, chaos becomes panacea, and characters take drastic measures into their own hands. Survivors of all kinds seek strategy and solace: a group of homeless people organize an occupation of vacant condos, a new resident to a disturbing neighbourhood tries to make sense of madness, a dog investigates the sudden disappearance of his owner. The five intertwined vignettes in the title story are set in a Caribbean country where the spectre of the sugar plantation haunts everyone.

Marked by a sure grasp of unusual subject matter and unfurling in gorgeous prose, the stories in You Should Pity Us Instead explore some of our toughest dilemmas: the cost of Middle East strife at its most intimate level, the likelihood of God considered in day-to-day terms, the moral stakes of family obligations, and the inescapable fact of mortality. Also, fundamentally, love in its many guises - family, romantic, friendship - each ensnared by rigorous demands and responsibilities.

The stories in Elegy on Kinderklavier explore the profound loss and intricate effects of war on lives that have been suddenly misaligned. Arna Bontemps Hemenway’s stories feel pulled out of time and place, and the suffering of his characters seem at once otherworldly and stunningly familiar.