Nobody Knows How It Got This Good

Fiction. Short Stories. Winner of Tartt First Fiction Award. Drawing heavily on the author's experiences growing up in Alabama, NOBODY KNOWS HOW IT GOT THIS GOOD explores themes of racial injustice, class, the Civil Rights Movement, environmental catastrophe, imprisonment, suburbanization, and the perennial themes of love, life and loss. Through sixteen stories sharing common environments and characters--a used car salesman, a cook on death row, a lynching survivor, a U.S. Census enumerator, the author's first short story collection, attempts to come to terms with the modern South. Though set there, these stories aspire with humor and pathos to address national dilemmas.