Author picture
3+ Works 92 Members 4 Reviews 1 Favorited

Works by Ethan Rutherford

Associated Works

The Best American Short Stories 2009 (2009) — Contributor — 363 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Gender
male

Members

Reviews

Rutherford collects together short stories about family and the connections between people. The stories are invariably *weird* but they feel weighty and layered. The prose is dreamlike, with an eye towards the small things we observe. Each left me a little bit off-centered and trying to put together the pieces, to know what it meant to me. Overall, I greatly enjoyed it since these types of stories are what my tastes drift towards naturally.
 
Flagged
iewi | 1 other review | Jun 21, 2021 |
Ethan Rutherfords collection explores family at every conceivable level human and non-human and the natural world and then they all cross over. Babies with gills and foxes raising children and all by way of the fable/fairy tale. The stories push up against having a 'point'. They are stories for the sake of telling a tale, family tales. Many of which do not have a 'point' or 'lesson' but in the midst of the chaos and madness these stories inhabit it is obvious that this is the point. Rutherford takes the chaos and confronts the reader with the horror in the chaos of life - of family life. The themes of family and nature and chaos and real-horrors of life is ever prescient now. These stories serve as a strange reflection on the deep past, the now, and the future - all at once.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
modioperandi | 1 other review | Mar 18, 2021 |
These are unsettling stories, some featuring the disenfranchised, some historical in nature (or both), and some about people with comfortable lives, at least until bad things happen to them. Ethan Rutherford also likes to tell nautical tales where disaster is pre-ordained.

In the title story a demoralized yet eager Confederate States of America submarine crew attempts to strike a blow for the confederacy during a war that is all but lost. ”We sat back, dumfounded, and familiarized ourselves with new definitions of inadequacy.”

“Camp Winnesaka” captures the black humor of George Saunders in a summer camp gone amok. “People – cynics – will tell you facts are essential. But facts can be misleading.”
In the uncomfortable “John, For Christmas” a manipulative adult son makes his parent’s life one of constant unease.

In “A Mugging” the humiliation of the act drives a wedge between an otherwise solid couple. “Dirwhals!” is the narrative of a futuristic whale-hunting expedition, complete with radical environmentalists, in a world where the Gulf of Mexico is now a desert and steel shipper-tanks troll the dry sand hunting Dirwhals as a source of energy.
… (more)
 
Flagged
Hagelstein | 1 other review | Sep 3, 2015 |

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
3
Also by
1
Members
92
Popularity
#202,476
Rating
3.8
Reviews
4
ISBNs
4
Favorited
1

Charts & Graphs