"Meg Files performs the most ancient story-teller's art: she insistently leads her characters to the precipice of loss, despair, submission to the large terrors and small anomies of their times; and then allows them to achieve a kind of grace and hopefulness in the very teeth of the abyss--in her own unforgettable phrase, 'human and winged.'"
--Ron Powers, author of
Far From Home and Cruel Radiance
Meg Files writes strong and important short stories. Sometimes her stories are funny, sometimes they're heart-wrenching, and sometimes they're terrifying; but they're always strong and they're always important, because Files writes of what can go wrong in life and what it takes to keep the human heart from breaking.
The twelve stories in her first collection, Home Is the Hunter and Other Stories, deal with recurring dark and threatening themes: dysfunctional families, relationships in disrepair, childlessness (and the loss of a child), and cancer. But the stories also contain redemption and hope: relationships break down so that they may be made stronger, and people learn from their nightmares.
The people in Files's fiction are intelligent, sensitive, funny, and worth spending time with, be they child or adult, working-class or academic. The stories happen all over the map, from semi-rural Midwest to the deserts and mountains of the Southwest to the storm-wracked islands of the south seas. But whatever the setting, these stories--all twelve of them--illuminate the landscape of the human heart.
About the Author: Meg Files is the author of the acclaimed novel Meridian 144 (Soho Press, 1991). Her stories and poems have appeared in scores of literary magazines. She teaches creative writing at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, and has been director of the Pima Writers' Workshop, the Colorado Mountain Writers' Workshop, and the Gila Writers' Conference.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR HOME IS THE HUNTER
"These stories are beautifully made pieces of art. The openings are so compelling that not one piece in this collection can be denied or put off. And the stories move less toward denoument than they do toward true poetic closure. Meg Files is a dazzling writer, and Home Is the Hunter is a distinguished collection of short fiction." --Frank X. Gaspar
"These stories are savvy, complex, and richly endowed with the gist and emotional grit of real lives: they reveal the extraordinary strengths that ordinary people muster in times of bewilderment, confusion, and despair."--Maurya Simon
"Everything about these stories feels true. This is a skillfully crafted book, peopled by characters who are compelling and real. But be warned: they'll grab you and they'll shake you--believe it. Meg Files is just a wonderful storyteller." --Ron Querry, author of The Death of Bernadette Lefthand
"There is an interaction among the main characters of all of these stories which reasserts the vital importance of family and family relationships that I find in few other examples of modern fiction. They are not always sweet, but they are never trivial or trivialized. Meg Files never laughs at her characters, although many of the things they say are funny." --Joanne Greenberg, author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
"With these stories Meg Files makes her sure mark as a sharp-seeing interpreter for women and men under special pressures.Home Is the Hunter is mature and literary; it is as complicated as we are--and as ready for hope." --Ron Carlson, author of Plan B for the Middle Class
"Meg Files sifts shades of darkness so carefully around these lives that when she allows a slant ray of hope to enter you can't help but leap for it yourself." --Pete Fromm, author of The Tall Uncut
"Meg Files reminds us that there's always a past behind every perfect Olan Mills portrait. This one's a dark delight." --Allen Woodman
"Home Is the Hunter explores love, loss, survival, animal nature, and the mysteries of the desert with enviable precision. Gifted with an authentic, original voice and horse-sense ways of knowing, Meg Files's collection is a treasure for readers of fine fiction everywhere."--Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Shadow Ranch
