Published in 2009
188 pages
Barb Johnson worked as a carpenter in New Orleans for more than twenty years before writing More of This World or Maybe Another.
She won Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and Washington Square’s fiction competition. Her work has appeared in such magazines as Guernica, The Southern Review, 52 Stories, and Oxford American, as well as in a number of anthologies, including Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Jobs They Quit, Voices Rising II: More Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project, and The Booklover’s Guide to New Orleans.
Her debut collection of short stories, More of This World or Maybe Another was an IndieNext pick, a Discover Great New Writers selection, and earned the second place prize at the Barnes & Noble Discover Awards. The book also won the 2011 American Library Association’s Barbara Gittings Literature Award..
She lives and writes in New Orleans
What is this book about?
From the backstreets of New Orleans to the rural Gulf Coast–this is the territory Johnson mines so unforgettably in her debut story collection. Filled with humor and pathos, with the nearness and danger of life on the edge, these stories chart the anxious inner moments of four related characters.
Johnson introduces the teenage Delia in the midst of working up the nerve for a first kiss; and Dooley, who drives a forklift for a living but dreams of a career in music that’s been put on ice after a tragic accident. Pudge, an alcoholic who survived a cruel childhood with an abusive father, now hides from his own son, Luis; and Luis, raised without a father, concocts a suitable end for his mother’s horrible boyfriend. Determined to save both Pudge and his son from an unhappy end, Johnson’s cast of characters huddles together at the local laundromat, scheming.
Johnson’s stories are sweet, messy, and heart-rending. As we watch her characters through her wide-angle lens, she makes us believe that life is worth living even when the circumstances say otherwise. Irresistible and perfect, More of This World or Maybe Another introduces an original voice in American fiction.
