Tannery Bay
206 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
5
Paperback
Release Date:15 Feb 2024
ISBN:9781573662055
Tannery Bay
A Novel
By Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle
University of Alabama Press, Fiction Collective 2
Enter a world where time stands still and summer never ends. In the enchanted town of Tannery Bay, it’s July 37, and then July 2 again, but the year is a mystery. Trapped in an eternal loop, the residents embark on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery, unity, and defiance against the forces that seek to divide them.
Otis and Joy, intrepid siblings, work with their family and friends to oppose a formidable adversary: The Owners. These cunning and ruthless old men, driven by insatiable greed, hold the town hostage, exploiting its resources and dividing its people. In this powerful #OwnVoices narrative, Tannery Bay is a captivating tale of Black Joy and Queer Joy and the ways in which family is both biological and chosen, where love transcends boundaries, and where art is a vehicle for change.
Otis and Joy, intrepid siblings, work with their family and friends to oppose a formidable adversary: The Owners. These cunning and ruthless old men, driven by insatiable greed, hold the town hostage, exploiting its resources and dividing its people. In this powerful #OwnVoices narrative, Tannery Bay is a captivating tale of Black Joy and Queer Joy and the ways in which family is both biological and chosen, where love transcends boundaries, and where art is a vehicle for change.
Tannery Bay is an unforgettable novel populated with characters who haunt like ghosts in a graveyard. Through dreams, images, and language that explode from the pages like a supernova, this unique and moving novel explores profound questions of inequality, the price of our dignity under capitalism, and the pulsating vibrancies of life.’
—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light
'Dunn and Shinkle have achieved the best of co-authorship in terms of a deeply imaginative novel that will delight readers with plot turns. Yet, for all of the inventiveness in the storyline, it is the characters who make this book a page-turner. To read Tannery Bay is to feel alive.'
—Electric Lit
Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle have created an exceptional exploration of how place shapes a person, which seamlessly hums beneath a world of taunting, endless Julys. Tannery Bay's fresh prose feels at once immediate and timeless while it unravels the enigmatic town's secrets.'
—Elle Nash, author of Deliver Me and Gag Reflex
Tannery Bay is as funny as it is haunting, with characters so rich and easy to love, you’ll miss them once you’ve finished reading and want to return to their world. From the dings in the casino to the purple skies and leather‐smelling air, we are immediately immersed in a world where love and family are made and held onto to survive and to claim, or reclaim, power over one’s own circumstances. Co‐authored by Steven Dunn and Katie Jean Shinkle, this novel is a premier model of the power of collective voice and storytelling, from the imagistic prose inviting us into the setting to the compelling narrative development throughout the novel. Tannery Bay is a book you’ll want to return to again and again.' —Suzi Q Smith, author of Poems For the End of the World
Steven Dunn is a 2021 Whiting Award winner and the author of Potted Meat and water & power. He was born and raised in West Virginia and teaches in the MFA programs at Regis University and Stetson University.
Katie Jean Shinkle is the author of five books of prose, most recently None of This Is an Invitation. A Lambda Literary fellow, she serves as co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM and teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing program at Sam Houston State University.
Katie Jean Shinkle is the author of five books of prose, most recently None of This Is an Invitation. A Lambda Literary fellow, she serves as co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM and teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing program at Sam Houston State University.
