Joyriders
Stories
In this debut collection, tangled bonds of love and family collide with a natural world both fragile and ferocious. Upended by grief, a widowed veterinarian seeks solace by fostering a litter of orphaned opossums. A young lawyer embarks on an affair, only to fall into a deeper, stranger entrancement with her lover’s nine-year-old daughter during a weekend on the Lake Huron coast. In the depths of a Wisconsin winter, a recovering alcoholic risks everything to plot a careening course toward atonement. And in the title story, two teenagers steal a car, discover a loaded rifle in the backseat, and set off consequences both devastating and tender for a series of strangers they’ll never meet.
Set across the Midwest and rural Appalachia, the stories in Joyriders offer a resonant vision of rural and small-town life: lonely, half-haunted landscapes are pierced with moments of light, and even the most taciturn faces conceal inner worlds both rich and strange. Comfort and heartache abound—entangled, inseparable. “What was Kevin suggesting,” wonders Valerie, after struggling for years to steer her innocent, angry, mysteriously afflicted son through the world, “that she loved him less because of his troubles? Oh, preposterous. More, she wanted to tell him, more.” Characters’ paths repeatedly bend in unforeseen directions, and the shape of each story surprises—illuminating, in this way, the surprising contours of entire lives.
'Joyriders is hands-down the best collection I've read this year. Schutz is a worthy successor to that brilliant line of contemporary American short story writers that includes Charles Baxter, Richard Bausch and Ann Beattie.'—Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
'The stories in this ambitious debut set amid the harsh beauty of the upper Midwest and Appalachia have been chiseled and worked down until every detail gleams with the authenticity of life. But what really thrills you is their sweep—in a few pages Greg Schutz can give you not just a life but a whole family’s life, with all they’ve endured and finally overcome. A book of resilience.'—Salvatore Scibona, author of The End and The Volunteer
'Greg Schutz is one of my favorite writers out there, and Joyriders is a marvel of a debut collection. These stories possess a mesmerizing clarity about the joys and hardships of relationships, parenthood, loss, and adolescence. Schutz’s writing is a lesson in radical generosity, toward language and toward people; his prose is exquisite and expansive, and each character—however flawed, however brief their appearance—is compelling and wonderfully alive on the page. I love this book!'—Sara Schaff, author of The Invention of Love
'Joyriders is a book full of love, redemption, and grace. Tenderness sits right beside remorse, as bullets get spent, bottles drunk, and combines drag more than fields of corn. Much like Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, these stories are larger on the inside than on the page and expand exponentially within the reader’s mind, long after the final word. Heartwooded by unforgettable characters, flawless details, palpable setting, and subtle lyricism, Joyriders is a genuine triumph.'—Nami Mun, author of Miles from Nowhere
‘These elegant, sure-footed stories draw you in with their craft and beauty and resonate with genuine human feeling. Joyriders, with its complex plotting and full-blooded characters, is an impressive and continuously surprising collection.’—Sabina Murray, author of Valiant Gentlemen, a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book
