In this astonishing debut, Tracy Winn poignantly chronicles the souls who inhabit the troubled mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, playing out their struggles and hopes over the course of the twentieth century. Through a stunning variety of voices, Winn paints a deep and permeating portrait of the town and its people: a young millworker who dreams of marrying rich and becoming "Mrs. Somebody Somebody"; an undercover union organizer whose privileged past shapes her cause; a Korean War veteran who returns to the wife he never really got to know—and the couple’s overindulged children, who grow up to act out against their parents; a town resident who reflects on a long-lost love and the treasure he keeps close to his heart. Winn’s keen insight into class and human nature, combined with her perfect, nuanced prose, make Mrs. Somebody Somebody truly shine.

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As in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, place is at the center of Cynthia Morrison Phoel‘s debut collection of linked stories. Quirky, remote, and agonizingly intimate, the ragged village of Old Mountain is home to a cast of Bulgarian townsfolk who do daily battle with the heat or the bitter cold, with soul-crushing poverty, with petty disagreements among themselves—all the while attempting to adapt to changing times and keep up with their neighbors. Money is tight in this valley of run-down Communist blocks and crumbling plaster houses, but community is tighter.

Cynthia Morrison Phoel served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a Bulgarian town not unlike the one in her stories. She holds degrees from Cornell and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her work has appeared in the Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, and Harvard Review. She lives near Boston with her husband and children.

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Mrs. Somebody Somebody: Fiction (Paperback)

By Tracy Winn

$14.00

ISBN-13: 9780812981452
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Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 06/01/2010

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Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories (Hardcover)

By Cynthia Morrison Phoel

$22.50

ISBN-13: 9780870745614
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Published: Southern Methodist University Press, 06/01/2010

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