Book cover for Counternarratives by John Keene

Counternarratives

2016 Released
320 Pages
6-7 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
New DirectionsISBN 9780811224352

Now in paperback, a bewitching collection of stories and novellas that are “suspenseful, thought-provoking, mystical, and haunting” (Publishers Weekly)

Ranging from the seventeenth century to the present, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives draws upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, and interrogation transcripts to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. “An Outtake” chronicles an escaped slave’s take on liberty and the American Revolution; “The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows” presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in Haiti and a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; “The Aeronauts” soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic Washington, and the theater of the U. S. Civil War; “Rivers” portrays a free Jim meeting up decades later with his former raftmate Huckleberry Finn; and in “Acrobatique,” the subject of a famous Edgar Degas painting talks back.

John Keene

John Keene is the author of Annotations and Counternarratives, both published by New Directions. His most recent book, Punks: New & Selected Poems, received the National Book Award for Poetry, the Thom Gunn Award from the Publishing Triangle and a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. A 2018 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Distinguished Professor of English and African American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark.

More by John Keene

Why Readwise Books?

Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →