{"product_id":"we-are-taking-only-what-we-need-stories-9780062749901","title":"We Are Taking Only What We Need: Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn these powerfully rendered, prizewinning stories, working-class African Americans across the South strive for meaning and search for direction in lives shaped by forces beyond their control\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ten stories in this resonant collection deal with both the ties that bind and the gulf that separates generations, from children confronting the fallibility of their own parents for the first time to adults finding themselves forced to start over again and again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \"Highway 18\"\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003ea young Jehovah's Witness going door to door with an expert field-service partner from up north is at a crossroads: will she go to college or continue to serve the church? \"If You Hit Randall County, You've Gone Too Far\"\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003etells of\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003ea family trying to make it through a tense celebratory dinner for a son just out on bail. And in the collection's title story, a young girl experiences loss for the first time in the fallout from her father's relationship with her babysitter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStartling, intimate, and prescient on their own, these stories build to a kaleidoscopic understanding of both the individual and the collective black experience over the last fifty years in the American South. With \u003cem\u003eWe Are Taking Only What We Need, \u003c\/em\u003eStephanie Powell Watts has crafted an incredibly assured and emotionally affecting meditation on everything from the large institutional forces to the small interpersonal moments that impress upon us and direct our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatts, Stephanie Powell:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Stephanie Powell Watts is an associate professor of English at Lehigh University, and has won numerous awards, including a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the Southern Women's Writers Award for Emerging Writer of the Year. Her 2017 novel, \u003cem\u003eNo One is Coming to Save Us, \u003c\/em\u003ewas nominated for two NAACP Image Awards--Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction and Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. She was also a PEN\/Hemingway finalist for her short-story collection \u003cem\u003eWe Are Taking Only What We Need.\u003c\/em\u003e","brand":"Ecco Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50409558049042,"sku":"9780062749901","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_db999ad2-9fbb-4cdd-b49d-fda740b00753.jpg?v=1729290465","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/we-are-taking-only-what-we-need-stories-9780062749901","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}