Something That Feels Like Truth (Switchgrass Books) - Softcover

Lystra, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0875806937 ISBN 13: 9780875806938

Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press, 2013

Synopsis

• Named a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 by the Library of Michigan
• Winner of the 2014 Midwest Book Award for short fiction
• Gold medal recipient for "Best Regional Fiction" from the Independent Publishers' IPPY awards

Reflecting the unique insights of an engineer who began writing fiction late in life, these and the other stories in Donald Lystra's Something That Feels Like Truth take us on a page-turning journey through the American heartland to as far away as Paris. In fierce but tender prose, Lystra writes about ordinary people navigating life's difficult boundaries---of age and love and family---and sometimes finding redemption in the face of searing regret. Although spanning half a century, these are timely stories that speak about the limits we place on ourselves, both from fear and for the sake of those we love, and of our willingness to confront change.

From the publisher: Donald Lystra's first novel, Season of Water and Ice, was the winner of the 2009 Midwest Book Award for fiction, making a nice publicity splash for our fiction imprint, Switchgrass, which proudly published it. The book garnered lots of publicity too, earing praise for Switchgrass in the pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, Time Out Chicago magazine, and other venues. This volume gathers a bracing selection of short stories by Lystra that are very much cut from the same cloth as his highly acclaimed novel. The stories in Something That Feels Like Truth confound expected plot turns, and Lystra develops his characters patiently and naturally, bringing them into convincing and honest actions. Lystra was a career engineer before retiring and launching a second career as a writer: I like to think this is why his fiction operates with such mathematical precision. Every plot point in every story here holds an integral part in the imbuing of its beauty and meaning. You can also tell Lystra has read a lot of Hemingway and Chekov: and that he aspires to be an inheritor of their effectively concise tradition. But there's a touch of Cheever in Lystra's stories as well: what that master storyteller did for the suburbs of New York, Lystra does for the Midwest.

About this title

About the Author:

Raised in cities and small towns around Michigan, Donald Lystra received degrees in electrical engineering and sociology from the University of Michigan. He began to write fiction when he was in his 50s and his writing reflects the unique perspective of an engineer turned writer. Lystra's first book, a novel entitled Season of Water and Ice, captured both the Midwest Book Award and the Michigan Notable Book Award in 2010. He has received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony, where he was honored with the Gerald Freund award for emerging writers. Lystra's short fiction has received Special Mention in the Pushcart Prizes. He and his wife divide their time between Ann Arbor and a farm in northern Michigan. He has two grown children.

Review:

"....a stellar collection of masterfully crafted gems." --BOOKLIST, American Library Association

"(The final story) illuminates the themes and patterns that precede it and in so doing illuminates life----I won't forget this beautiful piece and what Lystra accomplishes in it and in this wise book." --MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE, Anthony Bukoski

"Lystra's stories are marvelous vehicles of plainspoken power." --LARRY WATSON, author of Montana 1948 and American Boy

"The beauty of these stories and their landscapes--both physical and emotional--will surprise you." --BONNIE JO CAMPBELL, author of Once Upon a River and American Salvage

"....Here at the edge of a lake, in rustling fields of raw pine scrub, and inside the worn beauty of small towns, Donald Lystra contemplates truth, family, character (or lack thereof), and what it means to be awake and alive....Lystra is a precise and merciless writer, a master of that moment when life changes, often irreversibly." --MARDI LINK, author of Bootstrapper and Isadora's Secret

"Something that Feels like Truth is as quiet and luminous as the cold night sky over Michigan....Lystra knows that riveting drama can be found in small moments, hidden behind the ordinary-looking doors of our neighbors....Lystra is a writer of great wisdom and artistry, with a voice that makes you lean close and listen hard." --VALERIE LAKEN, author of Dream House and Separate Kingdoms

"The prose is clean and crisp, allowing the emotional punch of each story to come unexpectedly, even long after the reading. I can't recommend Something that Feels like Truth highly enough." --KEITH TAYLOR, poet and author; Director, University of Michigan Bear River Writers' Conference

"(Lystra's style) is rare these days and reminds me of Richard Bausch, Richard Ford, and Ron Carlson." --STEVE AMICK, author of The Lake, the River & the Other Lake and Nothing But a Smile

About this edition

• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0875806937
• ISBN 13: 9780875806938
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290