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Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction
Last Words of the Holy Ghost (Volume 14)
Funny, heartbreaking, and real—these twelve stories showcase a dynamic range of voices belonging to characters who can’t stop confessing. They are obsessive storytellers, disturbed professors, depressed auctioneers, gambling clergy. A fourteen-year-old boy gets baptized and speaks in tongues to win the love of a girl who ushers him into adulthood; a troubled insomniac searches the woods behind his mother’s house for the “awful pretty” singing that begins each midnight; a school-system employee plans a year-end party at the site of a child’s drowning; a burned-out health-care administrator retires from New England to coastal Georgia and stumbles upon a life-changing moment inside Walmart. These big-hearted people—tethered to the places that shape them—survive their daily sorrows and absurdities with well-timed laughter; they slouch toward forgiveness, and they point their ears toward the Holy Ghost’s last words.
- GenresShort Stories
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 5, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 11, 2021
These stories were not very interesting and quite frankly didn’t make sense
July 7, 2015
The Girl Who Drowned at School That Time is my favorite, the teacher Jo is burned out with the confines of her small town and the rules barring her from caring as much as she does for her students. The story is heavy with poisoned hope because we know for some of the students, life is already stacked against them. Jo doesn't shed the demands forced on her, and we follow her as she yearns for more. The writing is gorgeous, and Cashion has created wonderful, believable living, breathing characters.
In A Serious Question, Charlotte fights allowing Brother Michael to burrow his way into her heart. Happy with her solitude, her life free of demands other living souls make- she is struggling to let Brother Michael down. "She meant for her house to be empty of living things that made noise or produced waste or required attention of any kind." Can we ever escape the living? Doesn't life always hunt us down?
These stories made me sad at times, but in other stories I was tickled by the characters. It is a lovely collection of colorful folks. I didn't expect it to be this good. Yes, read away!
In A Serious Question, Charlotte fights allowing Brother Michael to burrow his way into her heart. Happy with her solitude, her life free of demands other living souls make- she is struggling to let Brother Michael down. "She meant for her house to be empty of living things that made noise or produced waste or required attention of any kind." Can we ever escape the living? Doesn't life always hunt us down?
These stories made me sad at times, but in other stories I was tickled by the characters. It is a lovely collection of colorful folks. I didn't expect it to be this good. Yes, read away!
January 1, 2017
A great variety of stories and characters make this book amazing to read. At turns funny, tragic, profound, and poignant, the stories are not ones I will soon forget.
August 7, 2015
"Listen: If you can find a collection of stories more cohesive, more ambitious in reach, more generous in its passion, and fancier in its footwork, I will buy it for you and deliver it in person." Lee K. Abbott, judge of the 2015 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction
From the first page I knew I was going to like reading the stores in The Last Words of the Holy Ghost, Matt Cashion's prize winning stories.
The press release tells it like this:
"The Last Words of the Holy Ghost, a collection of 12 Southern Gothic short stories, showcases a range of dynamic voices, characters, and settings, from the fourteen-year-old boy who speaks in tongues to the burned-out health-care administrator whose life changes during a trip to Wal-Mart."
The first story, The Girl Who Drowned At School That Time, starts with tragedy: a girl has drowned in the school pond. The school board quickly votes to fill the pond in to prevent any more drownings. It is the only responsible and sensible thing to do. Except...what to do with the fish that live in the pond? Things get complicated. It's always the small problems that cause trouble.
One man volunteers to fish them out. But they can't have one man catch and keep all the fish. They are school property after all. The fish have to be disposed of in a fair and equal way. And the fisherman already has a freezer full of catfish. The brilliant solution: have a fish fry. Plus they could raise money off the fish fry.
I was delighted by these strange folk who turn death and loss into a money making scheme! Isn't this how things work in real life, in small towns and small groups everywhere? We agree on the "big issues" and haggle over the small stuff. And--any excuse to have a party.
The responsibility to organize the event is pawned off to a secretary, a college student recently returned home. She has no intention of staying. Every day she thinks she'll quit. She sees the poverty, the ignorance, the neglected children, and the good ol' boys, and determines to leave town. Still she stays. She hasn't a clue how to pull off this fish fry. Meantime the exterminator, a veritable encyclopedia of American vermin, is pursuing her. He offers his help. At a price. The story is hilarious and dark and too true to life.
The last story, The Funeral Starts at Two, brought the book to a poignant conclusion. A man is supposed to take his father-in-law to the funeral of his brother. The father-in-law delays, enjoying his salt water pool and weaving tales about family members the son-in-law has never known. Wacky characters who would rather lift a horse, one end at a time, over a fence than go around. Who travel east to go west to be a cowboy. The son-in-law envies the older man's easy laugh. He wishes he knew more people who could laugh like that.
Parting brings a sad knowledge of how time and distance will come between them before they meet again--if ever in this life. As he drives away, the son-in-law sees "all the other ghosts who were also waving," the storied people so vividly drawn by the old man, who he can not forget.
That is the goal of a story-teller: to make people so real, in situations so real, that on closing the book these characters travel with us on our journey home.
Matt Cashion is that kind of story-teller.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
From the first page I knew I was going to like reading the stores in The Last Words of the Holy Ghost, Matt Cashion's prize winning stories.
The press release tells it like this:
"The Last Words of the Holy Ghost, a collection of 12 Southern Gothic short stories, showcases a range of dynamic voices, characters, and settings, from the fourteen-year-old boy who speaks in tongues to the burned-out health-care administrator whose life changes during a trip to Wal-Mart."
The first story, The Girl Who Drowned At School That Time, starts with tragedy: a girl has drowned in the school pond. The school board quickly votes to fill the pond in to prevent any more drownings. It is the only responsible and sensible thing to do. Except...what to do with the fish that live in the pond? Things get complicated. It's always the small problems that cause trouble.
One man volunteers to fish them out. But they can't have one man catch and keep all the fish. They are school property after all. The fish have to be disposed of in a fair and equal way. And the fisherman already has a freezer full of catfish. The brilliant solution: have a fish fry. Plus they could raise money off the fish fry.
I was delighted by these strange folk who turn death and loss into a money making scheme! Isn't this how things work in real life, in small towns and small groups everywhere? We agree on the "big issues" and haggle over the small stuff. And--any excuse to have a party.
The responsibility to organize the event is pawned off to a secretary, a college student recently returned home. She has no intention of staying. Every day she thinks she'll quit. She sees the poverty, the ignorance, the neglected children, and the good ol' boys, and determines to leave town. Still she stays. She hasn't a clue how to pull off this fish fry. Meantime the exterminator, a veritable encyclopedia of American vermin, is pursuing her. He offers his help. At a price. The story is hilarious and dark and too true to life.
The last story, The Funeral Starts at Two, brought the book to a poignant conclusion. A man is supposed to take his father-in-law to the funeral of his brother. The father-in-law delays, enjoying his salt water pool and weaving tales about family members the son-in-law has never known. Wacky characters who would rather lift a horse, one end at a time, over a fence than go around. Who travel east to go west to be a cowboy. The son-in-law envies the older man's easy laugh. He wishes he knew more people who could laugh like that.
Parting brings a sad knowledge of how time and distance will come between them before they meet again--if ever in this life. As he drives away, the son-in-law sees "all the other ghosts who were also waving," the storied people so vividly drawn by the old man, who he can not forget.
That is the goal of a story-teller: to make people so real, in situations so real, that on closing the book these characters travel with us on our journey home.
Matt Cashion is that kind of story-teller.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
September 26, 2016
I hated this book. I read it for a group read, so it is not something I picked for myself.
The characters in this book were mostly poor, divorced and remarried more than once. The only sympathetic characters were either the children who were the victims bouncing from mom to dad or Brother Michael in "A Serious Question". Charlotte was traumatized by her trip to Walmart.
Maybe it was that most of the stories were so short that the characters did not really grow. We were given a moment in time and then the story was over. Charlotte did grow - but she had already taken Michael to the bus and their reunion is off page.
I have not expressed it well. I guess the best thing to say is this book was just not for me.
The characters in this book were mostly poor, divorced and remarried more than once. The only sympathetic characters were either the children who were the victims bouncing from mom to dad or Brother Michael in "A Serious Question". Charlotte was traumatized by her trip to Walmart.
Maybe it was that most of the stories were so short that the characters did not really grow. We were given a moment in time and then the story was over. Charlotte did grow - but she had already taken Michael to the bus and their reunion is off page.
I have not expressed it well. I guess the best thing to say is this book was just not for me.
December 8, 2016
Matt's writing style is exactly the kind that pulls me in deep, requires a "snapping out of" to readjust. I particularly liked "The Funeral Starts at Two," "Awful Pretty," "Chuck Langford," and "Clarissa." Any of these subjects or storylines would flourish in longer form, and I'll be a vocal advocate for all of it. Godspeed with what will undoubtedly be a lasting and rewarding career with the pen!
November 12, 2015
All of these well-written short stories will have some sort of emotional effect on the reader, and the characters introduced are familiar, real, and memorable. Absolutely thought provoking. Full review on Hall Ways http://kristinehallways.blogspot.com/...
September 26, 2016
It's so wonderful when some you know writes a really, really great book. These stories are funny and moving and just very much in the vein of the great Southern writers that I love. So proud!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews