In the Devil's Territory [Paperback]

Kyle Minor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2008

The debut collection of stories and novellas (including "A Day Meant to Do Less," a Best American Mystery Stories 2008 selection) from a young writer who is, as Benjamin Percy has said, a master of "the dark caverns of the human heart."

A schoolteacher escapes East Berlin at night, swimming the Spree River three times carrying elderly relatives on her back, so she can make her way to West Palm Beach, Florida, and "ruin the lives of fifth grade boys." A young husband reckons with the likelihood that his wife's troubled pregnancy will end with her death before Christmas. A preacher bathes his ill and elderly mother, not knowing that she has mistaken him for the long-lost cousin she watched murder his brother in her father's tobacco field. In six stories that read like novels in miniature, In the Devil's Territory plumbs the depths of human mystery, where meet our kindnesses and our cruelties, our generosities and our pettinesses.

Kyle Minor's work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, among them Best American Mystery Stories 2008, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Surreal South, and Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers: The Best New Voices of 2006.

Advance praise for In the Devil's Territory:

"In the Devil's Territory is a brilliant and electrifying debut from one of America's best young writers. I would walk through Hell to be able to write like him."
- Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff

"Who is Kyle Minor and how does he know so much about the dark caverns of the human heart? What whispered spells does he cast to make me laugh and weep and gasp and clench my jaw all in the same page? From what secret river does he pull his sentences, glittering and sinuous?"
--Benjamin Percy, author of Refresh, Refresh and The Wilding

"In the Devil's Territory is an extravagantly good book. Dealing with the uneasy transactions people make in family and companionship, its six stories chart the wide scope of human possibility, from brutality to complicated redemption, and achieve a precise, crucial compassion."
--Erin McGraw, author of The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This debut collection focuses on religion and doubt, and showcases the potential and inconsistency of its young writer. The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl Party, which opens the collection, is Minor at his best—a powerful story about a man overcome with guilt, worry and resentment as the health of his wife and their unborn child hangs in the balance. It is followed by an unwieldy, 68-page tale of a squeamish minister undressing his senile mother for a bath (which is then followed by a story featuring another minister with many of the same life details). In general, the frequent recurrence of circumstance, setting and, sometimes, character, is more repetitive than progressive. Still, Minor has a knack for capturing melancholy and establishing empathy for his book's many wayward characters, as in The Navy Man, which tells the story of a Christian school principal's frustrated wife as she considers cheating (again) on her husband. Hopefully, the author's talents will be better displayed in his next book. (Nov.)
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Review

"Minor performs magic with point of view, and he knows that if you describe a thing precisely enough you can make it not just real but tragic."

--Alice Mattison, The Yale Review

"These stories make you wonder what people need to confess but cannot--and if they did, could we bear to hear it?" --Jason Skipper, Third Coast

"The range is impressive. Even more impressive is the thoughtfulness with which Minor explores the limits of our understanding of ourselves and one another." --Margaret Quamme, The Columbus Dispatch

"Minor shows in fantastic, horrifying detail how buried truths can bubble up in strange, nightmarish ways." --Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Phoenix

"Minor's voice lands somewhere between William Faulkner and Stephen King." --Sean Carman, New Pages

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Dzanc Books (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979312361
• ISBN-13: 978-0979312366
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #344,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kyle Minor is the winner of the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction and the Tara M. Kroger Prize for Short Fiction. He is also a three-time honoree in the annual Atlantic Monthly writing contest, and was named one of Random House's Best New Voices of 2006. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Salon.com, Best American Mystery Stories 2008, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers, Forty Stories: New Voices from Harper Perennial, and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013. His second collection of short fiction, Praying Drunk, will be published in February 2014.

http://www.kyleminor.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars impressive debut from a writer to watch October 18, 2008

By A. Scott

Format:Paperback

There are six stories in Kyle Minor's debut collection, and each story reveals his wide-ranging talent in new ways. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of IN THE DEVIL'S TERRITORY is how Minor easily slips into the private lives of a diverse cast of characters -- he knows our human secrets and isn't afraid to dig deep.

If you've read Minor's essay in Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers, you know he can flat-out write: fiction, nonfiction, it doesn't matter. Minor is a talent to watch in years to come.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars In the Devil's Territory by Kyle Minor April 3, 2009

By Sheila Hall

Format:Paperback

Throughout the book, IN THE DEVIL'S TERRITORY, Kyle Minor introduces complex characters. These characters, including a gay minister, and girl who escaped from East Berlin, are typically not what most writers would write about. In each of his six short stories in this book, Minor delves into characters which appear normal on the outside, but undergo turmoil on the inside because of their past experiences.
One of these six short stories is "A Love Story." This story is about a Baptist minister that knows he has feelings for the same sex. He first realizes this in Bible colleges and thinks he has a problem. Due to advice from a friend, he decided it was a fluke in his personality and marries a girl who is crazy about him. Years into their marriage, the pastor acts on his feelings about the same sex with his old college roommate. This is shown in a quote show his true feelings, "...what I was thinking was will I tell Marianne? (his wife) and what I found myself doing was letting him lean into me and kiss me." This is ironic because with this roommate; the minister first experienced feelings towards the same sex. People generally do not think of pastors as having these feelings, let alone act on the feelings.
Another one of the stories is "In the Devil's Territory." This story is about a girl who helps her family escape from East Berlin in the middle of the night. She loses her mom in the escape and the family moves to Florida. Else, the girl, becomes a strict teacher that does not put up with anything that is not normal. Else has trouble with one student in particular, who has a special relationship with the principle and sees him almost every day. Else has her qualms about teaching and she pays for it. This character goes against the stereotype that teachers are loving and want to their students to excel. It was clear that this job was something that Else had no patience for and did it to pay the bills. This is especially clear in this quote when Else is yelling at that student, "...You are a very stupid boy. You are a very week boy. And never will you be anything, Ronald Adams. Never, ever." Else's character is strong but severely cracked. As a girl she single handedly carried her family to safety, but as a grown up she is unwilling to let her guard down and accept people that threaten her.
Minor creates these characters because they are memorable. These characters stick in the minds of the reader long after one has finished the book. In all, this book was decent read. It was very good at understanding the psyche of people that have conflict in their lives. While the characters were personable and relatable, for me, the overall book did not strike me as a must read or something that I would like to read again.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Shimmering Stories November 19, 2008

By Luke Ripley

Format:Paperback

The title of this collection echoes a classic Sufjan Stevens' song, and like Stevens, the stories here come to the reader with a surprisingly eclectic combination of tenderness, inventiveness, and force. Minor is unafraid of taking on the big subjects: love and sex, death and decay, faith and transgression and the slow erosion of belief. But he doesn't simply recycle old plots and approaches, nor do the stories feel like veiled autobiographies. In fact, one of the most impressive things about this fine collection is the author's courage in taking on the sensibilities of a range of people: a young man with a wife on bed rest over Christmas; an aging teaching who, years ago, helped her family escape East Berlin; a minister bathing his senile mother. Minor has that all-too-rare combination of a large heart, a sharp eye, and big-canvas ambition. The sentences shimmer with precision. The emotional reach touches the sublime. Read these stories and bells will seem to chime in the background.