What do you think?
Rate this book
An End To All Things
When Jared Yates Sexton finished his MFA and returned to his hometown in Indiana, he found a population plagued by the kind of turmoil and tension usually reserved for fiction. Unemployment and uncertainty lurked everywhere he looked. In his debut story collection, this pervasive turbulence tilts into the fantastical as we observe the inspired, absurd, and even horrific moments in the lives of lost and luckless Midwesterners looking for something to believe in.
Through language that’s both striking and unassuming, Sexton creates a dangerous and disturbing world in which everything and everyone teeters precariously on the edge of total chaos; a world that bears a startling resemblance to our own.
Through language that’s both striking and unassuming, Sexton creates a dangerous and disturbing world in which everything and everyone teeters precariously on the edge of total chaos; a world that bears a startling resemblance to our own.
223 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2012
About the author
Jared Yates Sexton
16 books248 followersJared Yates Sexton is a born-and-bred Hoosier living and working in The South as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia Southern University. His work has appeared in publications around the world and his first short story collection, An End To All Things, is available from Atticus Books. His latest book, The Hook and The Haymaker, was released by Split Lip Press in January 2015. For more information and a select list of publications, please visit the author's website at www.jysexton.com. For more information on Split Lip Press, please visit www.splitlippress.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 17, 2013
I feel dirty for saying it, but these stories are 21st century Raymond Carver. The small details, the efficient prose, the themes - no shit. This collection is beautiful, and if it isn't the next book you buy, you're just fucking around.
Read
February 9, 2013I was asked to blurb this book and so was lucky enough to read it a few months in advance of its publication. Here's what I had to say:
“The characters in Jared Yates Sexton’s stories are desperate. They are obsessed. They speak a language that is part bar fight, part howl, part brokenhearted country song playing on a skipping vinyl loop. These are stories you want to listen to as much as read, full of fierce and searing and melancholy truths.”
“The characters in Jared Yates Sexton’s stories are desperate. They are obsessed. They speak a language that is part bar fight, part howl, part brokenhearted country song playing on a skipping vinyl loop. These are stories you want to listen to as much as read, full of fierce and searing and melancholy truths.”
October 21, 2014
I’m not a huge reader of short story collections so you're not going to get an esoteric breakdown of the pieces in Jared Yates Sexton’s book
An End To All Things
, which takes its name from the last piece in the book.
Here’s what I can tell you: Sexton’s themes largely revolve around the slow death that comes from alcoholism, the wretched crush that comes from poverty, and the emptiness that comes with knowing you can't do anything about either one of those things.
While there's no obvious connection between the stories, structurally each picks at a single idea like hopelessness and follows it through a vignette. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading an Appalachian version of the play Our Town. Each of the stories felt like another member of an unnamed community stepping forward to tell his (and they are largely his) story about death, alcohol, and hopelessness. There was no social commentary or even outward awareness of those forces. Instead, Sexton just allowed his characters to exist.
If this sounds like a criticism, it’s not. I spent the first half of the book trying to stitch together the thematic elements and structure. I'm wary of those who use the rural-type setting as a character, but this collection felt more like the unnamed setting was the fabric that tied the people together.
That's not to say there isn't a feeling of redundancy. That’s to be expected considering the small number of thematic elements. It did make the book easy to read in small chunks, though, since I could quickly return to the world in which the stories took place.
An End to All Things isn't light beach reading. Instead, it’s a window into a world where light doesn't shine and darkness pushes down like an anchor.
Here’s what I can tell you: Sexton’s themes largely revolve around the slow death that comes from alcoholism, the wretched crush that comes from poverty, and the emptiness that comes with knowing you can't do anything about either one of those things.
While there's no obvious connection between the stories, structurally each picks at a single idea like hopelessness and follows it through a vignette. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading an Appalachian version of the play Our Town. Each of the stories felt like another member of an unnamed community stepping forward to tell his (and they are largely his) story about death, alcohol, and hopelessness. There was no social commentary or even outward awareness of those forces. Instead, Sexton just allowed his characters to exist.
If this sounds like a criticism, it’s not. I spent the first half of the book trying to stitch together the thematic elements and structure. I'm wary of those who use the rural-type setting as a character, but this collection felt more like the unnamed setting was the fabric that tied the people together.
That's not to say there isn't a feeling of redundancy. That’s to be expected considering the small number of thematic elements. It did make the book easy to read in small chunks, though, since I could quickly return to the world in which the stories took place.
An End to All Things isn't light beach reading. Instead, it’s a window into a world where light doesn't shine and darkness pushes down like an anchor.
January 9, 2015
As with all collections, there are some better than others, but the good definitely outweigh those "in want" to create a wonderful collection. Even more, it works because of how well they all fit together to create a solid, cohesive set of stories, with characters that drink too much and ignore too often and can't seem to get their lives fully together. The stories are heartbreaking in their humanness and inability to change and adapt to the things that seem to be changing and adapting without us.
It's a great collection, to be sure, and one for any fan of the short form.
It's a great collection, to be sure, and one for any fan of the short form.
March 6, 2013
Outstanding! Best short story writer around.
July 1, 2019
Fantastic. Satisfied my itch for some Midwestern/Southern voice and quick, dirty story lines. (Okay, maybe they could've been a bit dirtier ;) ) Great read.
August 11, 2017
Met Jared Yates Sexton on my book tour, just finished An End to All Things, wonderful book--very real, authentic, and sincere. Look for his new book The People Are Going To Rise Like The Waters Upon Your Shores coming out August 15!
December 7, 2013
I read this book a while back when we were considering Mr. Sexton for a position teaching fiction. His credentials on paper looked good and I wanted to see for myself the style of his writing.
I have nothing but good things to say about this book. The stories are all so different in style and subject, and yet you come to the end of the book experiencing a larger connection to all the crazy characters you've encountered in these pages. It's sort of like a family reunion, where you think everyone is nuts, but you just love them and it's crazy but it's just your family. Sexton gives you that feeling.
Some of the stories are quite serious and sad, like one about a happily married guy who becomes obsessed with the secret his wife just told him: that once she posed for a porn magazine. You can see the obsession eating away at the guy, even if he knows better, even if he realizes that he's about to ruin everything. Other stories are funny, some are just bizarre, like one about an alien abduction, and one about a revolution. There is a sprinkle of crazy in each and every one of this pieces.
What this leaves me with: what a talent! There is so much style in each of Sexton's well-crafted sentences, so much churns under the ostensibly simple narrative. The characters are both familiar and strange, their situation both extravagantly bizarre and plausible. Honestly, I don't know how Sexton manages to maintain so much balance between commonplace and absolute mayhem. His stories, like the title suggests, hover aroudn the theme of apocalypse, but Sexton's apocalypses are brought about by cult evangelists, random snipers, and most especially, broken relationships. The stories are about simple people doing simple things, and yet the grotesque manages to seep under the skin of these so very normal characters causing them to do things we cringe to watch but find disturbingly connected to.
It's epic in scope, but delicious to sample, story by story. This is a stunning debut.
I have nothing but good things to say about this book. The stories are all so different in style and subject, and yet you come to the end of the book experiencing a larger connection to all the crazy characters you've encountered in these pages. It's sort of like a family reunion, where you think everyone is nuts, but you just love them and it's crazy but it's just your family. Sexton gives you that feeling.
Some of the stories are quite serious and sad, like one about a happily married guy who becomes obsessed with the secret his wife just told him: that once she posed for a porn magazine. You can see the obsession eating away at the guy, even if he knows better, even if he realizes that he's about to ruin everything. Other stories are funny, some are just bizarre, like one about an alien abduction, and one about a revolution. There is a sprinkle of crazy in each and every one of this pieces.
What this leaves me with: what a talent! There is so much style in each of Sexton's well-crafted sentences, so much churns under the ostensibly simple narrative. The characters are both familiar and strange, their situation both extravagantly bizarre and plausible. Honestly, I don't know how Sexton manages to maintain so much balance between commonplace and absolute mayhem. His stories, like the title suggests, hover aroudn the theme of apocalypse, but Sexton's apocalypses are brought about by cult evangelists, random snipers, and most especially, broken relationships. The stories are about simple people doing simple things, and yet the grotesque manages to seep under the skin of these so very normal characters causing them to do things we cringe to watch but find disturbingly connected to.
It's epic in scope, but delicious to sample, story by story. This is a stunning debut.
February 19, 2013
Maybe it was not for me. That is what I keep telling myself. I am pretty open and easy to please when it comes to books as I read any and everything. Had I not won this as a Goodreads Early Readers Giveaway I would have chosen not to review it as I don't like heaping criticism on others. So I will be succinct as possible.
Sexton has talent, that was obvious in his style and form. What was an issue for me was that each of these stories seemed to repeat itself to an almost unbearable point. I understand the premise of this compilation had a theme to it, and there was supposed to be similarities in the stories, but it for me I simply felt I was rehashing the same story time after time. For me personally it became grating after a while and I felt trapped in the same merry go round story after story.
Again, I can't fault talent as its there, this book was just not for me with its constant drilling of despair, loss and darkness.
Sexton has talent, that was obvious in his style and form. What was an issue for me was that each of these stories seemed to repeat itself to an almost unbearable point. I understand the premise of this compilation had a theme to it, and there was supposed to be similarities in the stories, but it for me I simply felt I was rehashing the same story time after time. For me personally it became grating after a while and I felt trapped in the same merry go round story after story.
Again, I can't fault talent as its there, this book was just not for me with its constant drilling of despair, loss and darkness.
November 12, 2013
This is seriously good stuff. Sexton writes with sincerity, tenderness, and guts, though the first thing one notices with these stories is probably the dark humor. I've taught some of these stories in my Intro to Creative Writing classes, along with others by Salinger, Carver, Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, Tobias Wolff, Hemingway, etc., and Sexton's stories are consistently among the students' favorite. Especially if you're interested in working class literature that is jagged--in a good way--and totally free of pretension, this book is one you need on your shelves.
March 24, 2013
Yep, Carveresque. More hick, a bit dumber even. Written partially in my childhood home.
August 9, 2014
Raw and gritty and real and tense and wonderful. Beyond genre, beyond definition, just damn good stories, a damn good collection with a lot to say.
November 22, 2015
Jared is the best.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews