{"product_id":"9781625340535","title":"Everyone Here Has a Gun: Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn a tightrope act of darkness and humor, fantasy and reality, the twelve stories in this award-winning collection describe characters searching for comfort and stability in a world that is ultimately too vast, violent, and incomprehensible. As they revert to what seems most simple and familiar — public transportation, television, museums, fairy tales — they discover only murder, displacement, fragmentation, and obsession.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \"The Running Legs and Other Stories,\" Mary Beth attempts to recall a traumatic experience from her childhood, filtering it through children's stories told by her \"wicked\" stepmother. In \"Lincoln's Face, A Resurrection,\" an African American make-up artist struggles with concepts of history as she transforms a former lover into Abraham Lincoln. The young narrator in \"Under the World\" grieves for his parents by losing himself in a worldwide subway system. And in the title story, the speaker describes a small room where everyone armed with a single gun waits with dread and anticipation for the inevitable first shot. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnton Chekhov famously noted that if a story introduces a gun in the first act, that gun must go off by the third. Yet while weapons are often present in Southworth's stories, they are rarely fired, existing instead as a constant reminder of the power people can have over each other and the violent potential of narrative itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e University of Massachusetts Press\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Massachusetts Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47056618324208,"sku":"9781625340535","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781625340535_p0.jpg?v=1763864928","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781625340535","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}