Jim Henry - Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive (Iowa Short Fiction Award)
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Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive (Iowa Short Fiction Award)
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Jim Henrys stories defy convention. There are no easy answers, no quick fixes. Although the plots varyfrom a corpse returning to visit his family weeks after his burial, to the musings of a congressman grappling with the weight of history, to a wealthy familys elaborate plot to cheer their mysteriously wounded motherall express a sense of the extraordinary in the ordinary, the absurd in the everyday. Henrys characters are for the most part misfits, outsiders looking in on a world whose seemingly natural order is turned upside down. In a throw-away culture obsessed with sex and drugs, money and God, they struggle to connect with what is real while trying to convince themselves that anything is. And yet in the midst of their existential searching there remains always Henrys quirky sense of humor. As one character says, Anything is possible, and in this collection anything and everything happens.
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Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive Iowa Short Fiction Award
author
:
Henry, Jim.
publisher
:
University of Iowa Press
isbn10 | asin
:
0877456100
print isbn13
:
9780877456100
ebook isbn13
:
9781587291074
language
:
English
subject
American fiction.
publication date
:
1997
lcc
:
PS3558.E49T48 1997eb
ddc
:
813/.54
subject
:
American fiction.
Page i
Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive
Page ii
The Iowa Short Fiction Award
Page iii
Thank You for Being Concerned and Sensitive
Jim Henry
University of Iowa Press Iowa City
Page iv
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright 1997 by Jim Henry
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Henry, Jim, 1962 Thank you for being concerned and sensitive / Jim Henry. p. cm.(The Iowa short fiction award) ISBN 0-87745-610-0 I. Title. II. Series. PS3558.E39765T48 1997 813'.54dc2197-17332
01 00 99 98 97 C 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
To the memory of Robert Burns Henry
When I was a child, it was the winters that I hated the most. All the other children had little red sleds. Mine was beige. That's when I first noticed the pains. JACK DOUGLAS, My Brother Was an Only Child
Page vii
Contents
Motherhurt
1
Gladys Knows
9
The Flood
21
Congressman Spoonbender
34
The Earthling!
43
The Prodigal Corpse
61
Observer Status
70
Jesus
84
The Main Event
94
The Last of the Plaids
105
"Yes!" Wins
112
Mouthfeel
119
Page ix
Acknowledgments
The author would like to express his gratitude to a few others who continually supported him over the years. These people include his patient and endlessly generous mother, Daniel Keyes, Mark Mirsky, Deborah Garrison, Abby Warren, Cindy Washabaugh, Martha Conway, Neal Chandler, and, especially, Sheila Schwartz.
The following stories in this collection appeared, in slightly different form, in these publications: "Motherhurt" in Studies in Contemporary Satire and "Observer Status" in Whiskey Island.
Page 1
Motherhurt
Mother's been hurt somehow, that much is clear. Paul is over in the corner chanting. He is trying to drown us out. He's read some book, some book about chanting. He says he will be different. He won't let us ruin him. All we can really do is nod. Paul is like that. Father is pacing, a frantic look across his reddened face. Mother's been hurt, it is her we must deal with now. The crisis of the moment is hers, Paul's self-indulgent chanting notwithstanding.
We break into little groups to discuss courses of action. I end up with Father and Timmy and Jonas and Sylvia and Paul. The six of us decide to open up a bag of chips. Thomas and Fred and Lila and Billy and Steve form another group and we hear them bick-
Page 2
ering over points of order. The last group is Baby, Scotty, and Phil. They're the three youngest and they don't really constitute a group but we let them pretend because if you don't let children pretend they grow up doing surprising, frightening things that, really, can be quite horrifying. This has been documented extensively by doctors and clinicians and the like. It's not just something I've conveniently made up as some in this family might have you believe.
Father passes the chips around and belches quietly. He is gruff, overbearing, at times flatulent. We all love him dearly. He is like a little boy lost in a hellishly frightening spook house. As are we all. "Your mother is a very sensitive woman," he tells us, although this we already know.
"What do you think it is?" Sylvia asks slyly, her head tilted to one side conspiratorially. She has a conspiratorial air to heralways has. No one trusts her. In a family full of large-breasted women she is flat-chested. She giggles incessantly and will never tell what about. She will never marry. No man would ever tolerate her. She has desperately bad teeth.
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