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Half Wild: Stories
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
13 posts | 7 read | 12 to read
A powerfully authentic new literary voice debuts with stories that carve out a distinctive vision of the wildness and beauty of rural Vermont.Spanning nearly forty years, the stories in Robin MacArthur s formidable debut give voice to the hopes, dreams, hungers, and fears of a diverse cast of Vermonters adolescent girls, aging hippies, hardscrabble farmers, disconnected women, and solitary men. Straddling the border between civilization and the wild, they all struggle to make sense of their loneliness and longings in the stark and often isolating enclaves they call home golden fields and white-veiled woods, dilapidated farmhouses and makeshift trailers, icy rivers and still lakes rouse the imagination, tether the heart, and inhabit the soul. In Creek Dippers, a teenage girl vows to escape the fate that has trapped her eccentric, rough-living mother. Maggie in the Trees explores the aftershocks of a man who surrenders to his passion for a wild, damaged woman his longtime friend s partner. In God s Country, an elderly woman is unexpectedly reminded of a forbidden youthful passion and the chance she did not take. Returning to her childhood house when her mother falls ill, a daughter grapples with her own sense of belonging in The Women Where I m From. In striking prose powerful in its clarity and purity, MacArthur effortlessly renders characters cleaved to the land that has defined them men and women, young and old, whose lives are inextricably intertwined with one another and tied to the fierce and beautiful natural world that surrounds them."
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mdemanatee
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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My friend: I‘m gonna drop by some goodies Me: Do you need some short story collections to borrow? (Can‘t remember if I‘ve already given her Half Wild but better safe than sorry)

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abbylibrarian
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Today‘s library haul! We lifted the limit on holds, which is freeing and dangerous! 😁

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Megabooks
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Pickpick

This is a book about rural life versus suburban sprawl in Vermont. Mainly it follows those "left behind" as the state becomes less wild and, in way, less authentic. It is also about those who stay and those who leave. As a person from a medium-sized town, I can definitely appreciate this. Every time I go back, there's another subdivision, another strip mall. ??‍♀️

Zelma Sounds very interesting. @ChrisBohjalian this sounds up your alley. 7y
86 likes3 stack adds1 comment
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Megabooks
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Feeling a bit anxious, so I'm having trouble settling into anything, especially a book. So far this seems to be holding my attention okay. In my life, there's nothing like a short story collection to break a slump.

ChasingOm Oof, I know that feeling! I hope you find a good distraction soon! 7y
Leannr @Booksandcooks Dubliners by James Joyce is my favourite collection of short stories and never fails to lavishly fill the void between books and lift the spirits 👌🏻 7y
85 likes1 stack add2 comments
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GregZimmerman
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Pickpick

Elegant, deeply resonant (at least for me) stories. Really loved this collection!

17 likes2 stack adds
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caitfish4311
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
Pickpick

A collection of intertwining short stories that are mostly melancholy to some degree. Not a bad thing. The characters are full of bad memories and have a tendency to repress things, not unlike you or I. The title links up with the last story, but also speaks to our human condition. We are full of strong currents of emotion, wild to a degree, and so are the characters in these stories.

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A.Shari.A
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Pickpick

Really stellar short stories with a strong sense of place. Loved this collection.

7 likes1 stack add
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caitfish4311
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Pineapple shisha and a good book. Happy Saturday. :)

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caitfish4311
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Two pages in and already a paragraph I love.

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LisaJo
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Today we spent sometime taking leaf pics. Well my friend did. I wandered over to visit the Galaxy Bookstore. The bookseller helped me find some books by Vermont authors. A book of poetry and short stories. As well as a southern gothic book - one of my Kryptonites. #vermontleafpepping #supportlocalbookstores

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shawnmooney
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Published August 2, 2016. Stories set in the Vermont countryside. But mostly, how about that cover?

ramblingsofareader that cover!😍 8y
31 likes1 stack add1 comment
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mdemanatee
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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Pickpick

I usually like my short stories odd. Or funny. Absurd. Slightly magical. These were none of those things. These were stories about the lives of country people. Lives we would consider slower. People that would most often be considered working class. And boy were they lovely and, at times, quietly heartbreaking. I grew up in the country. The setting of this, in both geography and time, was not my home, but I still recognized the truth.

6 likes1 stack add
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mdemanatee
Half Wild: Stories | Robin MacArthur
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"What is it about fields? The way they make all directions viable."

With the hours I've worked this weekend, @24in48 has been a bit of a fail for me (especially considering my normal reading times), but I'm gonna work on some short stories to bring it home.