The Next New World: Stories

by Bob Shacochis

A dazzling collection of memorable stories displaying an award-winning author's acclaimed mastery of storytelling and voice.

The haunting stories in Shacochis's second volume of stories possess a comic, sexy directness infused with an aura of history. Each of the eight tales here feature characters one could easily describe as outrageous originals who, through Shacochis's enormous storytelling gifts, especially in his marvelous ability to inhabit a spectacular range of voices, become eerily two elderly sisters share a phantom lover; a Virginia patriarch, haunted by ghosts of Confederate soldiers, is buried with their bones; a family celebrates the Fourth of July in the shadow of the father's Alzheimer's syndrome; while a musician's thunderous love turns him into a cannibal. From renaissance England to Cape Hatteras to the Caribbean islands, readers will find themselves submerged in exquisitely crafted fictions "charged with wit and style . . . intelligent, engaging, and richly realized." (New York Times Book Review).

"Shacochis is a master of voices. . . . In The Next New World he roams about through history and across the globe, tethering his wit to a sense of political conscience. . . . Sometimes more is more." --Miami Herald

"If we are in the golden age of the short story, Bob Shacochis is one of the writers who got us here." --Providence Journal

Genres: Short Stories

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Bob Shacochis is an American fiction writer and literary journalist.
He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.

Reviews

[Leo W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Easy in the Islands and, so, when I encountered this collection in a used book store, I was delighted. Found it less than satisfying. One had the sense that the author was experimenting with both style and content, but with marked success in some stories and less so in others.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

for the most part i was wowed. very rarely was i underwhelmed. in fact, in only one place was the whelming inadequate. the rest of the short stories were hyper-whelming. it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. indeed.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are few writers who have produced sentences as sinuous and beautiful as Bob Shacochis. That said, this over 30 year old collection does not speak to that ability. A couple at the beginning are... ok? but the final half of the collection is clunker and clonker. Oh well. They can't all be winners.