Purchase
Stories about the last minute of people beheaded
Chronicle Books
October 2006
On Sale: October 16, 2006
264 pages
ISBN: 0811856143
EAN: 9780811856140
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction | Historical
The human head is believed to remain in a state of
consciousness for one and one-half minutes after
decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak
at the rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by the
intersection of these two seemingly unrelated concepts,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler wrote
sixty-two stories, each exactly 240 words in length,
capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that go through
a person's mind after their head has been severed. The characters are both real and imagined—Medusa (beheaded by
Perseus, 2000 BC), Anne Boleyn (beheaded at the behest of
Henry VIII, 1536), a chicken (beheaded for Sunday dinner,
Alabama, 1958), and the author (decapitated, on the job,
2008). Told with the intensity of a poet and the wit of a
great storyteller, these final thoughts illuminate and
crystallize more about the characters' own lives and the
worlds they inhabit than many writers manage to convey in
full-length biographies or novels. The stories, which have
appeared in literary magazines across the country, are a
delightful and intriguing creative feat from one of today's
most inventive writers.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy