Against Her Fading Hour by Isaac Sweeney



About Isaac Sweeney:
I'm the author of three short-story ebooks and one collection of nonfiction essays. The latest of the short story books is titled Against Her Fading Hour. I am also a freelance writer and editor, and I teach in various colleges near my home. I live in Verona, Va., with my wife, son, four dogs, three cats, and bunny.

Why Isaac enjoys the short story genre:
I love short stories. One reason is that I can usually start and finish reading a short story in one sitting. That doesn't mean short stories are without depth or importance; it just means short stories are, well, short. Almost paradoxically, short stories are so compact that I have to read many of them more than once to get the full experience. They are short and content-rich.


As an author, I find short stories challenging to write. I spend a lot of time revising my stories, often cutting and cutting and cutting. I want my stories to contain as much as possible with as few words as possible. I subscribe to the William Strunk notion that "Vigorous writing is concise." This is going to be a strange and varied list, but some of my favorite short story authors are Flannery O'Connor, Steve Almond, Sherman Alexie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Stephen King.

Summary of this work:

Against Her Fading Hour is a small collection of three short stories, all from women's perspectives.
In "Handi-Cure," Elisa is a widow looking for acceptance in the world. She tries to find it in men but, after an unusual experience in a nail salon, she makes personal changes.


“Urine Trouble Now” is about a young couple and their overly anxious cat. The cat pees on the floor, which brings up details about the couple's relationship.


In “Lemonade Nights,” after Marco's father dies, he burns down the backyard shed in a fit of rage. Feeling guilty, he decides to rebuild the shed. His wife, Emma, likes having a husband who is good with his hands, but soon feels lonely as Marco spends more and more time on his project.

Buy now:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "Ferryman" by Nigel Edwards

Summary: "A mythology grew up around the Ferrymen, fostered by a mystique which they wrapped around themselves. Some thought them amoral servants of a ruling elite, sanctioned to undertake work beyond legitimate resolution; others with more fanciful imaginations – or who were more devout, depending on your point of view – believed them emissaries of Evil, with a capital E." Could the Ferrymen become real in your lifetime? Should they? Read this thoughtful and disturbing near-future science fiction story and decide for yourself. Review: This was a fantastic short story.  "Well-written" doesn't even begin to describe Ferryman ; it's engrossing.  The simple, clean style perfectly highlights our precise  protagonist.  If this future Edwards presents to us does in fact become a reality, the character he describes is exactly the type of person who would become a Ferryman: highly competent with the hint of a god complex. What's  especially clever abou
Read more

Interview with Author Hugh Howey

Welcome to Book Brouhaha! Why don't you start out by introducing yourself and telling us a little about "Wool." Thanks for having me, Alain! I suppose I'm just this normal guy who just wrote a little story called Wool. It's about a group of people who live underground. When their society turns on itself, it threatens all of mankind. In a way, it poses the conundrum of every revolution: How do you destroy an unjust social structure without the collateral damage being worse than the injustices were? I suppose the most interesting thing about me, personally, is that I lived on a sailboat while I was in college. This led to a career as a yacht captain, which sent me all over the Caribbean and the East Coast. I didn't start writing in earnest until my wife dragged me away from the sea and into the mountains. I've always loved the short form. I've been told that it isn't as marketable, even though science fiction has a long and glorious history of c
Read more

Ignorance is.... bliss?

I recently received a review of Celebrity Space that kind of embodies what I've been saying for a long time is the biggest issue for short story writers: ignorance. Here's the review: "Ok I read it. It isn't much of a story, I'm not even sure what happened. Maybe as an outline for a story twice or even 3X as long it wound be good. i don't think you can write a good story this short" It's a two star review.  It's neither the first two star review I've received nor the harshest.  The first part is just him saying he didn't care for it.  I'm fine with that.  What bothers me about this review is the last line.  It basically says it didn't matter what words I had written on the page.  The reviewer didn't care for the story because there weren't enough of them. Maybe this guy is a reading connoisseur and has read hundreds of short stories to finally come to this opinion.  But I doubt it.  I think he would be shocked if
Read more