Were All In This Together: A Novella
and Stories by Owen King
Good Future For Owen
“An exceptional debut...Funny and poignant, these stories are textured
gems.”—People (four-star critic’s pick)
The stories in this collection, along with Owen King’s brilliant title novella
set in Maine after the 2000 election, carry the weight of real emotion and
revelation and showcase the impressive versatility of a rising talent.
An adolescent encounters a giant reptile in the unlikeliest of places, a
rundown shopping mall; a baseball player in a fantastic 1930s Coney
Island is assailed by the guilt of an illicit romance; a nineteenth-century
itinerant dentist finds himself snowed in with a group of trappers for a long

evening of primitive surgery and laughing gas reveries. The stories in this
collection, along with King’s brilliant title novella set in Maine after the 2000
election, carry the weight of real emotion and revelation and showcase the
impressive versatility of a rising talent.
Personal Review: Were All In This Together: A Novella and
Stories by Owen King
Owen King's debut work, We're All In This Together, is my favorite book
this year, hands down. Smart and touching, the five outstanding tales that
make up this collection are at once startlingly original and classically
accomplished. King is one of those rare finds: a writer refreshing for both
his bold, creative ingenuity and his old-fashioned gift for story.
King is a virtuosic writer, and his range is clearly on display in this
collection. In "Frozen Animals," we meet Pinet, a nitrus-addicted dentist,
summoned in the middle of the night to make a strange and frightening
house-call. "Wonders" follows the exploits of a conflicted baseball player, a
second baseman for a Coney Island farm team during in the 1930's. In the
hilarious and heart-breaking story, "My Second Wife," a man still reeling
from his divorce joins his eccentric brother on one of the strangest road
trips in contemporary fiction.
Yet for all their daring and inventiveness, King's stories are, at heart, great
examples of classic story-telling. His characters live and breathe. They are
fully imagined, lovingly created, and immediately empathetic. Take for
example, George, the teenage protagonist of King's terrific title novella.
George's life (and story) is rich with complications. His grandfather, an ex-
union organizer, wants to use George for paintball practice so that he
might get good enough to gun down a rogue paperboy who keeps defacing
his home-made Al Gore billboard. Meanwhile, George is engaged in an
operation of his own, trying to sabotage his mother's impending marriage
to a middle-aged goofball named Dr. Vic. Here is George explaining
himself: "I wasn't getting along with my mother, and I didn't care to get
along with Dr. Vic. Of late, I suffered not so much from a feeling that my
voice wasn't being heard, as from a sense that I was speaking an entirely
different language...my voice was soundless, on the wrong frequency, like
a dog whistle..."
As strange as their stories might be, King's protagonists are unnervingly
familiar. Which is testiment to his considerable skill. He writes his
characters so well that we can't help but identify; no matter what happens
tothem, we're right there along side, in it together.
"The best contact wasn't like contact at all," King writes in "Wonders." "It
was like swinging straight through, the baseball only an echo of the bat's

motion. The game was so hard, but that moment was so easy -the ball
flew, Eckstein ran, and there was no chance they were going to catch him."
King's characters are always searching for moments like these, moments
of assurance, of clarity. Which is funny, given that reading King's fiction
leaves one feeling nothing if not assured - certain that one is in the hands
of a dazzling new talent.
Overall: In story after story, King takes care of business. An Elvis of a
collection
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Were All In This Together: A Novella and Stories by Owen King 5 Star Customer
Reviews and Lowest Price!