Stories
by Anthony Tognazzini
American
Readers Series
I
Carry A Hammer In My Pocket For Occasions Such As These is
a collection of 57 short pieces that range in length from compressed
paragraphs to 10-page stories. Its characters, voices, and surreal
scenarios are unified in a playful vision of the world that
is equal parts metaphor, memory, cartoon, tragedy, love story,
and song.
Speed and brevity
are a large part of the collection's design. To this end, I
Carry A Hammer In My Pocket For Occasions Such As These
is quick, colloquial and comic, yet challenging and highly reflective.
It offers readers--at a glance--a journey into a fictional world
that is poetic and narrative, fantastic and familiar, accessible
and adventurous.
"Reading Anthony Tognazzini is like having a surprise party
thrown in your honor on every page. I Carry A Hammer
In My Pocket For Occasions Such As These turns cartwheels,
plants daisies, and sings love songs in honor of all that is
strange, sad, serious, and sublime about being alive."
--
Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season
I
Bring the Lip Balm
Ever
since he scaled the heights of Macchu Picchu, my shadow has
had a cocky way about him. From my room I see him strutting
around in a pair of fancy pants. On the opposite wall his shape
looms large, then surges, jerks and shrinks to a dot along the
corridor tile, goes over the door to the bathroom mirror where
he clips his chest hair with a pair of little scissors. I know
everything about him. My shadow's favorite food is baked beans,
and on the day of my barbecue he eats three cans worth as he
cruises the lawn, talking to the ladies. My shadow spends all
day at the barbecue: never once crushed by the Hibatchi. I try
coaxing him to go, but he just leans back in a lawn chair, playing
the flickering hair. Playing dead is another attribute my shadow
has. His sleepy voice sounds like he's gargling with gravel.
"Am I in bed yet?" he asks. "Asleep?" Back
in his room, my shadow frightens me by taking out a porcupine
quill he claims to have inherited from his father and sliding
it, very carefully, into his chest. Says this cleans the sludge
from his heart. My shadow is forever tapping against the quasi-permeable
membrane of the self. "Who are you really?"
I ask, looking straight into his face. He says, "If you
want to know who, you are doomed," then goes on to complain
that his lips are real chapped.
Copyright © 2007 by BOA Editions
Available editions:
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Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-929918-90-4
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: April 2007
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New
Feature: Buy our books online in our new store [Here]
BOA Editions, Ltd. would like to thank the following generous Publishing Partners for their support of I Carry A Hammer In My Pocket for Occasions Such As These:
Anonymous (5)
Alan & Nancy Cameros
Gwen & Gary Conners
Susan DeWitt Davie
Peter & Sue Durant
Bev & Pete French
Judy & Dane Gordon
Kip & Deb Hale
Robin & Peter Hursh
Archie & Pat Kutz
Craig & Susan Larson
Stanley D. McKenzie
Boo Poulin
Roland Ricker
Deborah Ronnen
Philip Timpane
Ellen Wallack
Lee & Rob Ward
Thomas R. Ward in memory of Jane Buell Ward
Mike & Pat Wilder
Glenn & Helen William
