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Sign up todayBlues and Trouble
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Learn moreExploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate—from a Jewish couple encountering a dealer in Nazi memorabilia to the troubled family of a Gulf Coast fisherman awaiting a hurricane.
Tom Piazza’s debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact
New to this volume is an introduction written by the author. Drawing themes, forms, and stylistic approaches from blues and country music, these stories present a tough, haunting vision of a landscape where the social and spiritual ground shifts constantly underfoot.
Tom Piazza is the author of almost a dozen books, including the novel City of Refuge, which won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, and the post-Katrina classic Why New Orleans Matters. His most recent book is Devil Sent the Rain, a collection of his essays and journalism. A well known writer on American music as well, Tom won a Grammy Award and is a three-time winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he lives in New Orleans and is at work on a new novel.
A finalist in the 2020 Independent Audiobook Awards, Todd Menesses has recorded over seventy-five audiobooks to date, varying from fantasy, sci-fi, and horror to nonfiction and religion, all from his professional home studio. A twenty-five-year veteran voice actor, Todd continues his training with some of the best in the business, including Pat Fraley, Scott Brick, Johnny Heller, P. J. Ochlan, and Joel Froomkin. He has been praised for his believable character acting and accents. A native New Orleanian now transplanted in Kansas, when not watching his beloved New Orleans Saints (whom he used to work for in the broadcast booth) or collecting all things comic books as he has since age ten, he spends time with his family enjoying exploring the great outdoors.
Reviews
“Characters tend to be outsiders, often on the run, sometimes from failed relationships. Sometimes, too, the most enduring relationships are also the most unlikely.”
“Kin to everyone from Huck Finn to Jack Kerouac and blues guitarist Robert Johnson…Piazza’s book revives the essence of the short story.”
“Tom’s stories…pulsate with nervous electrical tension, reveal the emotions that we can’t define.”
“Tom Piazza’s writing is filled with energy and tender, insightful words for the brilliant and irascible.”
“In a few notes he can summon up a character’s voice or create a locale: a New Orleans cafe, a New York music company, a Gulf Coast fishing port.”
“Told in a clear tenor voice, Piazza’s first collection is as wonderfully dislocating as an all-night drive.”
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