Alan Heathcock is the author of Volt (2011), which was a “Best Book” selection from numerous newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Publishers Weekly, Salon, the Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer. Volt was also named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, selected as a Barnes and Noble Best Book of the Month, and was a finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. His fiction has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Kenyon Review, VQR, Five Chapters, Storyville, and the Harvard Review. His stories have won the National Magazine Award in fiction, and have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. Heathcock is the recipient of a Whiting Award in Fiction, the GLCA New Writers Award, and a National Magazine Award. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Lannan Foundation, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. A native of Chicago, he lives and works in Boise, Idaho.
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VoltStoriesFrom"Smoke"
He watched the sky and thought of all the fires the world had ever seen, fires from wars, fires from bombs. So much smoke. Where has it all gone? New smoke curled beneath wisps of old, drifting ever higher, higher. Where does it all go? He inhaled deeply and his insides burned, and Vernon knew all that smoke was now just the air we breathe.
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VoltStoriesFrom"Smoke"
“I want you to know me as I am, Vernon,” his father said. “I don’t want you to see me as good no more. A man what kills someone ain’t no good.”
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VoltStoriesFrom"Volt"
Sparks hissed across Helen’s vision, blood in her mouth. She tried to take her feet, couldn’t catch her breath. Gasping, she bear-crawled toward the cruiser. The muddy feet of children blocked her way. She reached to push them aside, then, groaning, her lungs bucking, pulled herself up the cruiser.
Volt:Stories
“The stories could be set in another century, the characters like members of an ancient sect grappling with love and faith and forgiveness and retribution. Even Heathcock’s prose, spare and muscular yet poetic, fits the foreboding, God-fearing nature of the stories . . . Heathcock displays a generosity of spirit that only those writers who love their characters can summon, and Volt is galvanizing proof of his talent.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Shocking, illuminating, and unforgettable . . . There’s nothing easy about trying to distill tragedy and pain into the space of one story. In Volt, Heathcock does it eight times, with a remarkable sense of compassion, and a deeply felt understanding of the mechanics of mourning.”—NPR.org
“[A] bejeweled collection . . . I haven’t been this enthusiastic about a book of stories in a while.” —Bookslut [on Volt]
Selected Works
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