A Waste of Shame and Other Sad Tales of the Appalachian Foothills

Fiction. As the Russian great Anton Chekov infamously noted, when a loaded rifle appears on page one, it absolutely must go off. In A WASTE OF SHAME Geoffrey Smagacz does not ignore this dramatic principle. Before the last page is turned, someone sadly pulls the trigger. Smagacz debuts a short novel and an accompanying collection of short stories written in a vein that carries the blood of Hemingway, Wodehouse, Nathaniel West, and Sherwood Anderson. Enter a small town where tragedy collides with fish fry cooks, soap-opera addicts, and the convenient but strained friendships of youth. Minimalist through and through, this is literary fiction that scrupulously avoids being literary. Eight of the stories/chapters collected in A WASTE OF SHAME have been previously published in print and online literary magazines, and the first chapter has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.