Congratulations on Your Martyrdom!

Zachary Tyler Vickers

Description

Connect with Break Away Books: Facebook Twitter Connect with the author: Website Twitter Read an excerpt from the book (includes book club guide questions)

Searing, troubling, and funny, these revolutionary, linked stories flit and dart among the shadows of small town life, and the touching and heartbreaking characters that occupy it. Employees use roadkill instead of faux pelts during a build-a-critter battle for mall supremacy. Former band geeks are harassed with mutilated musical instruments and then murdered. The collection is haunted by allusions to a fatal cannonball jump that crescendos in the explosive final story. An extraordinary addition to the canon of gonzo fiction, Congratulations on Your Martyrdom! introduces Zachary Tyler Vickers as an exciting new author whose unflinching prose grabs you and won't let go.

Acknowledgments
Disfigured Paper Animals
Elvis The Pelvis
Not All The Dominoes Having Yet Fallen
That Which Has No Fixed Order
Everything in Relation to Everything Else
Tornadic
Elbow
Karst
My Kind of Utmost Tender
Acutely Angled
Tighter, Goodbye
The Cry
Credits

Sujets

• Humorous
• General officer
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253019851
• Langue: English

Extrait

This is a collection full of lingering stories and lovely lines, and it introduces Vickers as a vital new writer. His stories occupy a unique middle zone between the memorably bizarre and the movingly sweethearted, the deeply felt and the dementedly funny. He s also a tireless stylist, capturing his characters sad-sack vernacular and tweaking every sentence until it yields some tongue-twisting lyricism.
Bennett Sims, author of A Questionable Shape
The stories are linked, by place, by time, by characters, by small events and large tragedies that pop up in brief mentions in one story and then disappear for several pieces, only to reappear and be examined from different perspectives more fully. The end effect is a set of connected stories that has the power of a novel and a magnetic, almost hypnotic pull on the reader.
Paul Griner, author of Hurry Please I Want to Know
Zachary Tyler Vickers s Congratulations on Your Martyrdom! is delightfully metafictive, admirably invested in social critique, and wisely aware of both the benefits and pitfalls of domestic verisimilitude. The interconnected nature of the stories allows Vickers to manage complex and complete world-building. An interesting and original addition to the canon of gonzo fiction!
Josh Russell, author of Yellow Jack
Congratulations on Your Martyrdom! is full of inventive mischief, strange new worlds, and good old human longing. Zachary Tyler Vickers is a true original, with a wild and rambunctious imagination, and deadeye for the funnybone.
Michelle Huneven, author of Off Course
In Congratulations on Your Martyrdom! , Zachary Tyler Vickers cannonballs from the highest diving board into the teeming pool of contemporary literature. These playfully irreverent stories are populated by optimistic underdogs - working stiffs, grievers, the lovelorn - earnestly struggling to keep their heads above water. Vickers, with kindness, humility, and precision of voice, extends a lifeline to these beautiful weirdos and, with a gentle tug, sends us skyward to soar above this busy, busy, busy modern world.
Jason Ockert, author of Wasp Box

break away b ks

This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Zachary Tyler Vickers
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vickers, Zachary Tyler.
[Short stories. Selections]
Congratulations on your martyrdom! / Zachary Tyler Vickers.
pages cm. - (Break away books)
ISBN 978-0-253-01981-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-01985-1 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS 3622. I 2837 A 6 2016
813 .6 - dc23
2015028891
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
FOR MY PARENTS
You forget that a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Mr. W. H.
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
DISFIGURED PAPER ANIMALS
ELVIS THE PELVIS
NOT ALL THE DOMINOES HAVING YET FALLEN
THAT WHICH HAS NO FIXED ORDER
EVERYTHING IN RELATION TO EVERYTHING ELSE
TORNADIC
ELBOW
KARST
MY KIND OF UTMOST TENDER
ACUTELY ANGLED
TIGHTER, GOODBYE
THE CRY
Credits
Book Club Guide
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Sam Chang and the Iowa Writers Workshop for allowing me the time to write this book, to grow, and for all of the wonderful things you provided me, in head and heart. And to Deb, Jan, and Connie - thank you for all of your help and kindness. Thank you to all of my peers, in and out of workshop, who helped shape many of these stories.
To all of my teachers: Michelle Huneven, Allan Gurganus, Jim McPherson, Elizabeth McCracken, Ethan Canin, Alexander Chee, and Robin Hemley. To Michael Martone, of course: i zoi! To George Saunders: a mentor in humbleness and generosity, above and beyond your tutelage. To Jason Ockert: the first dude who showed me what fiction can really do - in his workshops and in his own stories - your classes changed my life, sir.
To my agent, Janet Silver, for all of her steadfast belief, support, and effort. To Sarah Jacobi and the entire staff at Break Away Books and Indiana University Press. And to all of the editors who published some of these stories in your incredible journals: Emerson Review, Waccamaw, Spork, Hobart, American Reader, KGB Bar Lit Magazine, LVNG, and H-NGM-N .
To all of my friends, again and again and again.
And to my family for all of their love, support, and encouragement. Especially to my brother, Colby; mother, Vicky; and father, Dave - you never blinked once when I set out to do this seemingly impossible thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you all.
D ISFIGURED P APER A NIMALS
I m inserting the Magical Foam Organs into a Stuff-A-Bear groundhog when Eddie calls me over to a bin of miscellaneous carcasses and asks if I require a warm baseball mitt to play with my pud. He laughs and makes his hand do a jack-off motion with these long lanky fingers like wolverines . I tuck my hands into my pockets.
Eddie restocks the carcass bins. He recently got married after doing time for lashing somebody with a sock of oranges. He has been extra jerky since Burlington Kids Zoo Outlet opened at the other end of the mall, meaning he hasn t had as much to restock. We ve avoided pay cuts and layoffs by switching to authentic carcasses that Sh bner buys cheap off Eddie s pal Uncle Angelo, the crooked Guido taxidermist. The few customers we get haven t noticed. They choose a limp carcass from a bin and bring it to me for Life-Giving. I insert Magical Foam Organs, stuff it with a hose called the Umbilical Cord, then close it up with a colorful threaded suture. After that it goes to Blind Chris for Bathing - a station with a miniature claw-footed basin and air hose. Then the Stuff-A-Bear transfers to Attire for clothing and accessories. Then it s off to Sh bner at the register for Payment/Birth Certificate.
Eddie is still laughing as I finish the groundhog. My stitching is flawless. My fat hands keep the carcass straight on the sewing machine. But that s all they re good for. Because of my short stubby fingers, it s a challenge to even grip a spoon or palm a softball. I ve heard my share of ridicule. I could get an operation to thin and lengthen my fingers, but I can t afford something like that. It s easier just to keep my hands in my pockets.

Midday, Sh bner announces a staff meeting, holding what looks like a mutilated Stuff-A-Bear bunny. It must ve been geeky Hal Winkler, manager of Burlington Kids Zoo Outlet. He and Sh bner have been warring for stuffed animal distributor supremacy. Notches have been upped back and forth. Lately, Winkler has been snooping around, sending us Polaroids of Stuff-A-Bears S Ming each other: ball-gagged and paddled and choke-collared. Sh bner countered by filling a BKZO chimp with Bangzo FireCracklers, which Eddie set off in Winkler s office trash can. The war has upped another notch since.
We convene in the stockroom. Blind Chris has his hands on the card table like two pale carnations, folding another piece of colored paper. Eddie mocks me by sucking a knuckle. It reminds me of my last date at the Cineplex. I wore the usual driving gloves and finger extensions. The woman, Gwynn, twisted her blonde hair with a red-nailed finger. I should ve known when she ran one of those red nails up my thigh and purred at the sight of the Coming Attractions . As soon as the lights dimmed, she began to claw at my belt and pants, her nose whistling from a deviated septum. I begged her to watch the movie but she was in a severe heat. Her whistles were high and quick and wanting. She removed one of my driving gloves and ended up suckling one of the finger extensions. It fell from her tongue and bounced a few rows down. She gagged, stood, left me staring at the screen. I don t recall the flick. I m sure it was the type where the Happily Ever After doesn t quite happen, and all the lovesick ponies in the audience go home with nothing in their lungs to cheer about.
BKZO has upped things another notch! Sh bner shouts. He shows us the mangled Stuff-A-Bear: an arm in a cast, a purple ring painted around a button eye. Pinned to its chest is a Polaroid of a food court saltshaker. You cheat! is written on the back. After a series of instigating emails, Sh bner and Winkler met in the food court for a staring contest. Sh bner won by allegedly flicking salt from the shaker into Winkler s eye.
We need to take things up yet another notch! Sh bner exclaims. He motivates himself again by sharing the photograph of his laughing wife. She d leave him for sure if she knew Marshall s college fund had been nearly depleted to invest in the Stuff-A-Bear franchise. He s been trying to earn it back. He shows us his knotty bruised shins where Marshall has kicked him because he can t afford to host his sixth birthday party at the PizzaPalace.
Sh bner motivates us. He asks Blind Chris, did he enjoy walking dogs? Blind Chris again replies, No. There was nothing en