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The Boys' House

The Boys' House

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New & Selected Stories

Author Jim Heynen, Introduction by Bill Holm

Minnesota Historical Society Press (July 1, 2002)

Sixty-four new and selected tales spanning more than twenty years in the career of a modern master of the short story.

Description

Chosen as an "Editors' Favorite Books of 2001" by The Bloomsbury Review

These sixty-four sharply honed stories, selected by the author from more than twenty years of work, showcase Jim Heynen’s equal mastery of terse, elegant prose and old-style country wit and wisdom. Every tale is an unerring slice from the lives of a group of farm boys, each full of mischief and witness to the world’s tiny miracles. They make coat sails to carry them down a frozen road, teach a three-legged dog to shake hands, build a house from the junk grown-ups throw away, but they also rescue pigs from an unexpected blizzard, feed apples to a blind pony, and learn the songs of different birds. Along the way, they encounter an unforgettable cast of characters: the goose lady, the girl at school with six toes, the man who kept cigars in his cap, Spitting Sally, their crazy Uncle Jack, and dozens more. Heynen’s stories, as uniquely American as those of Mark Twain or Sherwood Anderson, are ribald fun, but, like all good country tales, they are also filled with surprises and unexpected, deeper implications.

For this book Heynen has written twenty new stories and revised many of those tales originally published in his first two collections, both now unavailable. This retrospective volume serves as a wonderful companion to his much-praised collection, The One-Room Schoolhouse: Stories About the Boys.

Author information

Jim Heynen was born on a farm in northwest Iowa and received his first eight years of education at one of the state's last one-room schoolhouses, Welcome #3. He has published three previous collections of stories: The One-Room Schoolhouse, You Know What Is Right, and The Man Who Kept Cigars in His Cap. His novels for young adults include Cosmo Coyote and William the Nice and Being Youngest, and his collections of poetry include Standing Naked, A Suitable Church,and How the Sow Became a Goddess. He is also the editor of Fishing for Chickens: Stories about Rural Youth. Since 1992, and he has been the Writer in Residence at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.


  • 208 pages
  • 5 x 7 inches
  • ISBN: 9780873514385

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