Scavengers: Stories

A woman obsessed with reality TV encounters a sorority girl who has embarked on a very personal scavenger hunt. A man unexpectedly discovers that his father--a seemingly rational man--believes, seriously, in lake monsters. A woman whose husband has just survived a near-fatal accident flees to St. Petersburg, Russia, to wander through museums and palaces and simply try to forget. Hansel (yes, that Hansel), all grown up, tries to be a good father. A young girl begins to suspect that the s ances being held in her basement just might not be as harmless as they seem.

These are the people and situations--where the familiar and bizarre intermix--that animate Becky Hagenston's stories in Scavengers. From Mississippi to Arizona to Russia, characters find themselves faced with a choice: make sense of the past, or run from it. But Hagenston reminds us that even running can never be pure--so which parts of your past do you decide to hold on to? A brilliant collection from a master of short fiction, Scavengers is surprising, strange, and moving by turns--and wholly unforgettable.

Becky Hagenston is the author of A Gram of Mars and Strange Weather. She is associate professor of English at Mississippi State University.