The Evening News (short story collection)

Last updated
First edition The Evening News (short story collection).jpg
First edition

The Evening News is Tony Ardizzone's first collection of stories, and winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. The collection is a small press book published in 1986 by the University of Georgia Press.

Contents

Themes

Set mostly in Chicago's blue-collar neighborhoods, these stories focus on subjects that concern or interest us all: disease and death, vandalism and sacrilege, rape and infidelity, Catholicism, baseball, lost love.

Contents

A son resolves his mounting grief over his mother's imminent death by recalling the stories she has told all her life.

Gino, an adolescent, believes two of his classmates have seen Christ. Later, he questions his faith.

The husband and wife look at their pasts—his as an activist in the sixties and hers as a believer in reincarnation and the tarot—in light of the news stories they watch on television each evening, and question whether they should bring a child into the world.

Tells of a young man teetering on the brink of adulthood, and finally finding hope and reassurance from the remembered sound of his bus-driver father's laugh, from remembered phrases such as "Move away from the window, lady, can't you see I'm driving" and "If you ain't got a quarter or a token there, grandma, you and your purse can get off at the next stop."

A young girl is raped by her boyfriend.

A young man drives past his old girlfriend's house and recalls their time together and how he interacted with her family.

A man gardens and attempts to connect with a new home.

Young adults involved in a peaceful wartime protest are beaten by the police.

Peter picks his Catholic, Italian American parents up from the airport and drives them around in his pickup. He pretends to be searching for the church he claims to attend, though he is lying.

a bartender and former varsity pitcher for the University of Illinois Fighting Illini finds the actual events of the most cataclysmic day in his past unequal to their impact on his life and so rewrites them in his mind, adding an ill-placed banana peel, a falling meteor, and a careening truck in order to create a more fitting climax and finally to leave those memories behind him.

An elderly widow walking the streets of the once-flourishing Italian neighborhood around Taylor Street on Chicago's Near West Side. To those around her she appears doddering, maybe crazy, but she doesn't see herself that way at all. The old lady's mind wanders as she confronts the changes in the place and the people. She flashes back to what the area was like before the mayor allowed the university to take over the land and force the shopkeepers to take flight.

Reviews

"Ardizzone's detached tone and fine eye for significant details bring his characters and their emotions alive. Lovers of short fiction should look forward to more of his work." -Joan Mooney of St. Petersburg Times

"These are tough, menacing stories in which fate and memory exercise their Hardylike sway, all narrated in a variety of inventive and accomplished voices." -Tom Dowling of the San Francisco Examiner

"Ardizzone's stories also have a political bite to them, adding a deepened dimension, a fuller realization to his characters and giving them a particular social context often missing in other young writers." -David E. Anderson from The Seattle Times

Related Research Articles

<i>The Illustrated Man</i> Short story collection by Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of 18 science fiction short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. A recurring theme throughout the stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.

<i>The Scarlet Letter</i> 1850 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Containing a number of religious and historic allusions, the book explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

Margaret St. Clair American writer

Margaret St. Clair was an American fantasy and science fiction writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Idris Seabright and Wilton Hazzard.

<i>The October Country</i> Collection of nineteen macabre short stories (1955) by American writer Ray Bradbury

The October Country is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories previously published elsewhere.

<i>I Sing the Body Electric!</i> (short story collection) Book by Ray Bradbury

I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from an included short story of the same title, which in turn took the title from a poem by Walt Whitman published in his collection Leaves of Grass.

"That Evening Sun" is a short story by the American author William Faulkner, published in 1931 in the collection These 13, which included Faulkner's most anthologized story, "A Rose for Emily". The story was originally published, in a slightly different form, as "That Evening Sun Go Down" in The American Mercury in March of the same year.

<i>I gioielli della Madonna</i> Opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

I gioielli della Madonna is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event.

Samson Raphaelson American writer

Samson Raphaelson was a leading American playwright, screenwriter and fiction writer.

<i>The Cats Pajamas: Stories</i>

The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The name of its title story comes from a phrase in English meaning a sought after and fancy thing. Another collection by the same name was published in the same year by fellow science fiction author James Morrow.

Rhinelander v. Rhinelander was a divorce case between Kip Rhinelander and Alice Jones. Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander was an American socialite and a member of the socially prominent and wealthy New York City Rhinelander family. His marriage at the age of 21 to Alice Jones, a biracial woman who was a working-class daughter of English immigrants, made national headlines in 1924.

<i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> (novel) 1949 novel by Nelson Algren

The Man with the Golden Arm is a novel by Nelson Algren, published by Doubleday in November 1949. One of the seminal novels of post-World War II American letters, The Man with the Golden Arm is widely considered Algren's greatest and most enduring work. It won the National Book Award in 1950.

<i>Once Were Warriors</i> (film) 1994 New Zealand film by Lee Tamahori

Once Were Warriors is a 1994 New Zealand drama film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff's bestselling 1990 first novel. The film tells the story of the Hekes, an urban Māori family, and their problems with poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the patriarch, Jake. The film was directed by Lee Tamahori, written by Riwia Brown, and stars Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison and Cliff Curtis. It became the highest-grossing film of all-time in New Zealand, and has won numerous awards.

<i>I Am No One You Know: Stories</i>

I Am No One You Know: Stories is a short story collection by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 2004 by Ecco Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. There are 19 stories in this collection.

Anthony V. Ardizzone is an American novelist, short story writer, and editor.

<i>When You Reach Me</i> American childrens novel, 2009

When You Reach Me is a Newbery Medal-winning science fiction and mystery novel by Rebecca Stead, published in 2009. It takes place on the Upper West Side of New York during 1978 and 1979 and follows the protagonist, Miranda Sinclair. She receives a strange note asking her to record future events and write down the location of her spare house key. As the novel progresses, Miranda receives three more notes with requests. The novel contains three storylines — the appearance of Miranda's mom on the game show The $20,000 Pyramid, Miranda's best friend Sal suddenly not talking to Miranda, and the appearance of a laughing man. Central themes in the novel include independence, redemption, and friendship. Stead also wanted to demonstrate the possibilities that she saw in time travel. The author hoped to show her children what New York was like in her childhood, and demonstrate how in an earlier time children were more self sufficient.

<i>Larabis Ox: Stories of Morocco</i>

Larabi's Ox: Stories of Morocco by Tony Ardizzone is a collection of linked short stories. Published in 1992 by the small press Milkweed Editions, the collection is the Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the Friends of Literature's Chicago Foundation Award for Fiction, the Pushcart Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction

Heart of the Order is a 1986 novel written by Tony Ardizzone. It was published by Henry Holt and Company and won the Virginia Prize for Fiction and named one of the 10 Best Sports Books 1986 by The National Sports Review.

Taking it Home: Stories from the Neighborhood is the third collection by Tony Ardizzone. Published in 1996 by the University of Illinois Press Sunsinger Books. It was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. Of the twelve stories included, six were previously published in the author's first collection, The Evening News.

The Reluctant Shaman Short story by L. Sprague de Camp

"The Reluctant Shaman" is a contemporary fantasy story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories for April 1947. It first appeared in book form in the collection The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales ; it later appeared in the magazine Science Fiction Yearbook no. 5 and the collection The Best of L. Sprague de Camp. The story has been translated into French and German.

Jason Tanamor Filipino-American author and writer

Jason Tanamor is a Filipino-American author, writer, and entertainment interviewer. His novels range in genre, from dark in nature to satirical and from young adult to children's. His novel, a NA urban fantasy about Filipino folklore (aswang) called Vampires of Portlandia, touches upon his love for campy horror stories. "It’s not really a fascination but I do love the genre, but mixed with dark humor or comedy, which includes the shows 'Supernatural' and 'Grimm', and the movies 'The Lost Boys' and 'Beetlejuice'. The new novel is a mashup of these shows and movies." It was recently optioned for screen and is currently in development.

References