Short story collections are literary treasures, offering a diverse tapestry of narratives within a compact form and offer a glimpse into the human experience. They invite readers to explore new perspectives and cultures within a single volume. Each story is a different universe and readers can enjoy them individually or binge through the collection, reveling in the variety of themes. There is a new short story collection out this month by Sean Murphy – “This Kind of Man.” So if you enjoy these types of books, here is some more information.
Sean Murphy is the Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit that celebrates storytelling. He has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Sequestrum, Blue Mountain Review, and others. His chapbook, “The Blackened Blues,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. His second anthology of poems, “Rhapsodies in Blue” was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. He has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book “Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone” was the winner of Memoir Magazine’s 2022 Memoir Prize. His new book “This Kind of Man” is his first collection of short fiction and offers an unvarnished look at life in 21st Century America, excavating the complicated, tender, wild truth of what it is to be a man across generations and relationships. (1455 Literary Arts, 2024)
“This Kind of Man” – These stories interrogate the pressures and tensions of contemporary life, and the ways men grapple with them, often without success. Issues such as marriage, fatherhood, aggression, alcoholism, gender expectations, generational backlash, and the inexorable dread of death, abound.
Many of these stories live within a slow implosion of coping, and often failing, as well as those who refuse to succumb, addressing concerns oft-discussed, or not discussed enough, in mainstream print: gun violence, the recent history of coal country Appalachia, sports-related concussions, illegal immigration (and the jobs many of these ostensibly unwelcome folks are obliged to do), homelessness, and the inability of men to honestly connect or communicate.
Far from excusing or exonerating toxic males, this collection locates their violence (toward others, against themselves) in the context of a deadening culture and the false narratives that prevail in an exploitative, zero-sum game capitalist model, where those without are encouraged to quarrel with similarly overworked and underpaid, mostly blue-collar workers. We see that our received notions of manhood and masculinity are inculcated-from the beginning and by design-to ensure willing participation in a system where the overwhelming majority are excluded from the start. We witness the way these dysfunctions are handed down like inheritance, and how every cliché, from fighting to drinking to intolerance of dissent and distrust of others, is a carefully constructed trap, preventing solidarity, empathy, and love (for others, for one’s self).
SA Examiner 