Congratulations to Scott Gould and Vine Leaves Press on the release of Idiot Men, a collection of stories about wayward characters who make poor choices in life and love against a backdrop of elegant prose.
★★★★★ "Scott Gould is a literary shapeshifter. A rough Southern man who writes about trucks, beer, dogs and doublewides with the finesse of a poet." ~Jane Stern, author of Ambulance Girl
Idiot Men by Scott Gould
NEW RELEASE: November 7, 2023Genres: Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Southern United States Fiction, American Humorous Fiction, Dark Humor
Paperback: $17.99
Ebook: $5.99
With Strangers to Temptation, Things that Crash, Things that Fly, and The Hammerhead Chronicles, Scott Gould cemented his reputation as one of the most inventive, distinctive voices of Southern literature. In his latest collection, Idiot Men, he once again gathers a cast of unforgettable characters in eleven stories chock full of exceptional storylines and hilarious writing.
You’ll meet a truck driver whose wife flees to Jamaica with her lover, leaving him to babysit her hairless tomcat, Princess Di; a male nurse who discovers a trailer full of counterfeit NASCAR paraphernalia during a home health visit; an amateur arsonist sentenced to a year in a Smokey the Bear suit; a disgruntled roofer with a bad back and a meth-dealing twin brother… these are just a few of the idiot men you’ll encounter in a collection of stories that will appeal to readers who relish literature with a Southern flavor.
Gould's Idiot Men provides the stage for wayward characters who make poor choices in life and love against a backdrop of elegant prose. These tales recalibrate morality and convention as readers will grow to love the characters despite—and perhaps because of—their flaws. These diverse, rich stories are ultimately connected by the spellbinding voice of a true Southern storyteller.
Praise for Idiot Men and Scott Gould
★★★★★ "A writer able to make you laugh out loud and move you deeply, often in the same sentence." ~Nic Brown, author of Bang Bang Crash
★★★★★ "Yes, the protagonists in Idiot Men make questionable choices at times, but they do so with big-hearted, well-meant, honorable intentions. And if they’re idiots, well, they’re our idiots. Here’s a great congregation of stories, told in Gould’s unmistakable voice." ~George Singleton, author of The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs
★★★★★ "Idiot Men is like the best country song you have ever heard. [Gould's] writing breaks your heart but makes you rejoice that you are still alive to recover.” ~Jane Stern, author of Ambulance Girl
About the Author
Scott Gould is the author of the story collection, Strangers to Temptation (Hub City Press), and the novels, Whereabouts (Koehler Books) and The Hammerhead Chronicles (University of North Georgia Press). His work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, New Ohio Review, Crazyhorse, Carolina Quarterly, New Stories from the South, and others. He is a multiple winner of the Individual Artist Fellowship in Prose from the South Carolina Arts Commission, as well as the Fiction Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. He lives in Sans Souci, South Carolina. Learn more at scottgouldwriter.com.