The Evening News (stories)
Encyclopedia
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
.
'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.
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.
"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
Tony Ardizzone
Anthony V. Ardizzone is an American novelist, short story writer, and editor.-Biography:Ardizzone was raised on the North Side of Chicago. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1971 and from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in 1975...
's first collection of stories, and winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press named in honor of the American short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor....
. The collection is a small press
Small press
Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...
book published in 1986 by the University of Georgia Press
University of Georgia Press
The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is a publishing house and is a member of the Association of American University Presses.Founded in 1938, the UGA Press is a division of the University of Georgia and is located on the campus in Athens, Georgia, USA...
.
Themes
Set mostly in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
'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
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, baseball, lost love.
Contents
- My Mother's Stories first appeared in Black Warrior ReviewBlack Warrior ReviewThe Black Warrior Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1974 and based at the University of Alabama. Work appearing in BWR has been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize collection, The Best American Short Stories , Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South. The Spring 1978 issue...
A son resolves his mounting grief over his mother's imminent death by recalling the stories she has told all her life.
- The Eyes of the Children first appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal
Gino, an adolescent, believes two of his classmates have seen Christ. Later, he questions his faith.
- The Evening News first appeared in EpochEpoch (magazine)Epoch is a three-times-a-year American literary magazine founded in 1947 and published by Cornell University. The widely respected magazine has published well-known authors and award-winning work including stories reprinted in The Best American Short Stories series and poems later included in The...
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.
- My Father's Laugh first appeared in Black Warrior ReviewBlack Warrior ReviewThe Black Warrior Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1974 and based at the University of Alabama. Work appearing in BWR has been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize collection, The Best American Short Stories , Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South. The Spring 1978 issue...
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."
- The Daughter and the Tradesman first appeared in The Texas Quarterly
A young girl is raped by her boyfriend.
- Idling first appeared in Carolina Quarterly
A young man drives past his old girlfriend's house and recalls their time together and how he interacted with her family.
- The Transplant
A man gardens and attempts to connect with a new home.
- The Intersection first appeared in The Minnesota ReviewThe Minnesota ReviewThe Minnesota Review is a literary and cultural studies journal which places a special emphasis on politically engaged criticism, fiction and poetry. Issues are often "themed," recent issues examining the nature of academic publishing, of academic celebrity and of "smart" working class kids'...
Young adults involved in a peaceful wartime protest are beaten by the police.
- World Without End first appeared in Memphis State Review
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.
- The Walk-On first appeared in QuartetQuartetIn music, a quartet is a method of instrumentation , used to perform a musical composition, and consisting of four parts.-Western art music:...
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.
- Nonna first appeared in EpochEpoch (magazine)Epoch is a three-times-a-year American literary magazine founded in 1947 and published by Cornell University. The widely respected magazine has published well-known authors and award-winning work including stories reprinted in The Best American Short Stories series and poems later included in The...
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 TimesSt. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
"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
Tom Dowling
-External links:...
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
The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...