Minnesodom and Other Stories

Wildcat oil-prospecting outlaw bikers take on a rival gang of NBA washouts trained in Dying Ape Flailing Style kung-fu ....Food poisoning gives way to deeper issues among an amateur heist crew trying to take down a porno shop score ...A man's always-thwarted suicide attempts spin a comedy of errors that accidentally turns him into a serial killer ...A self-important gothic kid fights a battle of wills over funeral arrangements with his dead girlfriend's family ...A dog recruits a friend to help avenge his master's murder ...A restauranteur juggles a food critic and his sideline running drugs ...Rival prison gangs throw Mardi Gras in winter in a Minnesota prison ...A cuckolded boyfriend's jaunt down the highway toward oblivion gives "roadkill" a whole new meaning ...A former pimp comes out of retirement as a senior citizen, bringing his old ladies -and his Alzheimer's- with him ...Shared history and repressed desires violently collide for a family man vice detective and his strung-out confidential informant, who also happens to be his old college roommate ...CONTENTS PART ONE – THE EARLY CRAPIntroductionJavaphobiaBitter SoulEveryone Grieves in a Unique WayNobody’s Killing Anybody HereAhead of the GameBad for BusinessMy Worst DaysA Good Summer JobChileJanuary SecondMy Best Friend’s GirlTo Hear JesusBackslidePART TWO – LATE MODEL CRAPCrotch-RocketsCrampYou Can WatchVicarious RadiationThe Black Hole of LuckA Southern Gentlemen Out in the SnowMotheringClive ConfessesLovers Through All Eternity and Forever MoreLouder GospelHerman Dog DigsThe King of Mardi GrasPsycho Redneck Pick-Up Truck Killing SpreeGranny PussyMinnesodom From the frozen fields of Minnesota to the sweltering, unromantic gulf ports of Louisiana, through the halls of academia and overnight church lock-ins, across bloodstained backroad asphalt and deep into seedy motels and federal penitentiaries, Anthony Neil Smith's short fiction drags readers on a frenetic meet-and-greet of lost and soiled souls gone tumbling into desperation, emptiness and absurdity. From his earliest stories centered on the Pentecostal Church ("You know the Bible?" "From movies.") to his more recent themes of black humor, casual crime and devastating loss, Minnesodom and Other Stories charts the process of the Spinetingler Award-winning writer finding his feet, and then using those feet to kick the reader square in the gut."If you can picture the intellectual and physical mayhem that might have resulted from a Jim Thompson and Harry Crews collaboration, you’d be on the right track. But Anthony Neil Smith is his own writer—and a very fine one, indeed." --Elliott Swanson