by Wilson Hand Kidde
In case you’ve been wondering what happened to the great American tradition of storytelling, look to Peter Neofotis. His extraordinary first collection, Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Eleven Stories is the sort of work you’ll feel like reading aloud. Set in a fictitious town, these fresh, original stories, replete with wit and keen observation of human nature, are reminiscent of Eudora Welty and Tennessee Williams. Woven dexterously throughout, Neofotis’s characters come alive with tenderness, humor and passion to try to untangle the mysteries of life and love as well as to grapple with broader issues that continue to confront society like racism, bigotry and the values important to a well-spent life. Neofotis’s exquisitely felt and rendered prose often seems to border on poetry, myth and legend. These delightful stories announce the arrival of a new American writer we can look forward to hearing more from. That’s very good news indeed.
[Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Eleven Stories, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2009, 160 pp., $19.95, ISBN: 0312537379]
Note: Peter Neofotis will appear at the Southern Book Festival in Nashville on October 10, this year.
Peter has worked by day at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and served as a Contributing Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. By night, he has written and performed the stories of Concord, Virginia at several New York theaters. Raised in the Blue Ridge, he lives in New York City.
Hand is a writer who lives in New York City.
