Last Known Position

By James Mathews

Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, 2008. Most of the nine stories in Last Known Position were written upon James Mathews' return from combat deployment to the Middle East with the D.C. Air National Guard. Life under fire provided the author with both dramatic events and a heightened sense of observation, allowing him to suggest the stress of combat as the driving factor behind extreme yet believable characterization and action. Military experiences and settings cause certain human elements and truisms to emerge more profoundly and dramatically. These stories portray desperate characters driven to make desperate choices. Always on the edge of a dark and unpleasant reality, Mathews' characters survive by embracing fantasy, humor, violence, and sometimes redemption. Each story bears its own brand of hopeless quirkiness. Four teenagers on an army base steal a grenade and are stalked by a parade horse. A drifter returns home to rob the grandparents who raised him. A national guardsman faces a homicidal superior officer in Iraq on the eve of war. An elderly man worries that his wife's new house guests are unrepentant cannibals. Always tense, sometimes ridiculous, and never dull, Last Known Position brings the reader to places unknown before and unforgettable after.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574412523
• ISBN13: 9781574412529
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: University of North Texas Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A great read

This is one of the best books I've read in years. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys reading literary short fiction and/or gritty hard-boiled stories (I love both).

Great...Ready for More

Thought this collection of short stories was great! I love to read but am a busy mother of four so I tend to enjoy short stories so that i may actually finish a story in a reasonable amount of time. Could not put the book down! Every story held my interest and left me wanting more. I would definetly recommend this book and I will be looking for more from this author.