Resurrectionists (Iowa Short Fiction Award)

By Russell Working

Eight stories deal with a teenager practicing martial arts, a photojournalist's encounter with zombiism, a paper mill worker, and a hospital patient on New Year's Day.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877451648
• ISBN13: 9780877451648
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

New York Times Book Review

Here's what the Times said about the book, April 19, 1987: RESURRECTIONISTS. By Russell Working. (University of Iowa Press, $14.95.) The Iowa Short Fiction Award is among the most prestigious literary prizes American offers. It has been given every year since 1970 by the University of Iowa - and let there be no snide jokes about 'corn country.' The judges are always people with distinguished writing careers of their own. This year's judge was Tobias Wolff, whose 'In the Garden of the North American Martyrs' made quite an impression of its own in 1981. Russell Working, co-winner with Dan O'Brien for 1986, is a 26-year-old reporter in Oregon; the youngest recipient of this award, he has an amazing ability to draw the reader immediately into the world about which he is writing, whether it is the paper mills of the Pacific Northwest, where a former policeman is almost courting death, the Haiti of voodoo and the dread Tonton Macoutes, or the lazy hot summer afternoons of a group of young boys. The final story in this collection of eight, titled 'On Freedom,' is a stark, relentless tale of a night in jail and the brutality and degradation it can bring from callous guards and fellow prisoners alike. Two of the stories, 'Charis' and 'The Monkey,' introduce with both compassion and aching realism the subject of epilepsy and how it can affect those who love him. It is the quiet intensity of this writing that is so impressive. Basically, Mr. Working concentrates on people caught up in situations they never anticipated. Even if they do not quite understand it, they are longing for a personal 'resurrection,' a rebirth from what life has dealt them so far. It will be interesting to see what this young writer will do with a full-length novel.