{"product_id":"iron-bridge-sunday-and-other-stories-9781959346227","title":"Iron Bridge Sunday: and Other Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003eAdvance praise for \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday and Other Stories...\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is the most beautiful collection of pitch perfect short stories that I have ever encountered---each one encompassing a whole existence. These hard lives are held together by love, cruelty, necessity, family lore and custom and hard work...and Les Brown writes the best dialogue I've ever read, hands down. I hope \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e will find the wide readership it deserves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e--Lee Smith, author of \u003ci\u003eSaving Grace \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eNews of the Spirit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is a wonderful book. Brown is a master of regional dialect, and his humor is laugh out loud funny as his characters wend their way through their lives, but there is also a poignancy, and as we read the last powerful line, we feel the heartache of a place and people lost to time. Les Brown is one of our Appalachia's most gifted storytellers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e--Ron Rash, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Caretaker \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSerena\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMuch has been made about the importance of place in southern American fiction. Les Brown's \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e masterfully weaves the tales of two generations of farm and otherwise rural families, and in doing so, creates the fictional Sycamore Cove, an unforgettable space that is charged with natural beauty and gifted with a landscape that is a challenge for humans to conquer. The setting is so true; one gets the feeling that these delightful stories could not have taken place anywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e--Tim Peeler, author of \u003ci\u003eKnucklebear \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eRought Beast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLes Brown's \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIron Bridge Sunday and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e couldn't be more engaging. A portrait of life in a Western North Carolina mountain cove in the previous century, the stories are funny, sad, harsh, even violent. Taken as a whole, they add up to a complex rendering of a hardscrabble time when people were more connected to the land and to each other. It's an evocation of a way of life mostly gone, written by someone who lived the life himself. In its sensibility, its empathy, its humor and its hard-earned tenderness, Iron Bridge Sunday and Other Stories is reminiscent of Fred Chappell's classic\u003ci\u003e I Am One of You Forever.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e--Tommy Hays, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Pleasure Was Mine \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eWhat I Came to Tell You\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlso by Les Brown: \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Place Where Trees Had Names, Poems, \u003c\/i\u003e2020\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCold Forge, Poems, \u003c\/i\u003e2022\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLes Brown, PhD in biology, a native of the mountains of North Carolina, attended Appalachian State University and the University of Southern Mississippi. He is Professor Emeritus of Gardner-Webb University. His stories have appeared in \u003ci\u003eAppalachian Heritage\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMoonshine Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eNow and Then\u003c\/i\u003e. A poet and visual artist, his work has also appeared in journals including \u003ci\u003ePinesong, \u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ePine Mountain Sand and Gravel\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eKakalak\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMain Street Rag\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eStill: The Journal. \u003c\/i\u003eA Pushcart Nominee, previous winner and finalist for the Poet Laureate Award of the NCPS, Les lives with his wife, Joyce, and their cat in Troutman, NC. His chapbooks, \u003ci\u003eCold Forge\u003c\/i\u003e (2022), and \u003ci\u003eA Place Where Trees Had Names\u003c\/i\u003e, (2020), were published by Redhawk Publications.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Redhawk Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51589826216210,"sku":"9781959346227","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d37e2a11-fa14-4c15-91bd-7d2e69942c34.jpg?v=1756808806","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/iron-bridge-sunday-and-other-stories-9781959346227","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}