About the Book
In the dark heart of winter, a young boy struggles to understand his mother’s failing health as she teaches him Polish, the language of her dead mother. From a distance, a frustrated English professor dines with her mentally ill ex-husband in a park on which a mansion once stood. A single mother struggles to let go as her teenage son seeks his independence. A drag queen and his partner battle a snowstorm while debating the future of their relationship. A retired garbage collector finds solace in the ballet, and the owner of a liquor store tries to find companionship on the streets and in the bars of Minneapolis. Equal parts bitterness and beauty, the sixteen stories in this collection are plotted snapshots of a city in its most unforgiving season.
Characters come together in this collaborative short story collection. Dealing with life choices, quirky behavior, and an array of emotions, Six Months in the Midwest is a stand-out collection from author Darci Schummer.
Characters come together in this collaborative short story collection. Dealing with life choices, quirky behavior, and an array of emotions, Six Months in the Midwest is a stand-out collection from author Darci Schummer.
Praise for SIX MONTHS IN THE MIDWEST
"This is one of the most emotionally intense collections of short stories I have ever read. Sometimes I had to fight through tears to keep reading stories like "Chemistry," which is just a crushing piece about realizing too late what it takes to hold a relationship together. The characters in all of these stories are in tough positions. Relationships falling apart. Loved ones lost. Hope fading or already gone. More often than not, the result of their own actions or inaction. But these people still push forward, through bleak Minnesota winters.
Speaking of Minnesota, the setting is as much a character in these stories as the people. Minneapolis and St. Paul are unforgiving, or maybe just ambivalent. Or sometimes, they offer refuge, the only refuge when hope is fading so fast. That's not to say there aren't glimmers of hope. "The Garbage Collector," one of the standouts, along with "Nobody Moves in Winter" and others, find characters discovering something positive to hold onto, if only for a fleeting moment.
The prose in this collection is impeccable, but it's a tough book. It's the kind of book you aren't going to be able to read straight through. It's the kind of book that you'll have to put down every story or two and just catch your breath and pull yourself together before you can move forward. And when you do get to the last page, you're never likely to forget this reading experience."
-MP Johnson
Speaking of Minnesota, the setting is as much a character in these stories as the people. Minneapolis and St. Paul are unforgiving, or maybe just ambivalent. Or sometimes, they offer refuge, the only refuge when hope is fading so fast. That's not to say there aren't glimmers of hope. "The Garbage Collector," one of the standouts, along with "Nobody Moves in Winter" and others, find characters discovering something positive to hold onto, if only for a fleeting moment.
The prose in this collection is impeccable, but it's a tough book. It's the kind of book you aren't going to be able to read straight through. It's the kind of book that you'll have to put down every story or two and just catch your breath and pull yourself together before you can move forward. And when you do get to the last page, you're never likely to forget this reading experience."
-MP Johnson
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"From the first line,"After a late summer storm, Minneapolis was in a state of mild ache" Darci Schummer captures the essence of the Midwestern city. The author brings to the reader a myriad of people and their "small" yet unfailingly real stories. Often under a suffocating low winter's sky, Schummer brings us closer to understanding those we pass by but rarely see. Highly recommend this author's first book"
-Whalegale |
"Here are characters that breathe, that live. It's almost startling how few pages Schummer requires to evoke the histories of these characters, even if said histories sit teaming under outwardly ordinary surfaces. Betrayals, anxieties, small acts of kindness sit hunched together in the pages, fueling small but profound events. Each story as much a meditation on being human as it is on the snow that falls through lamplight on a Minneapolis winter night -- the city becoming its own aching character. You become tied into these characters -- so beautifully, painstakingly written -- you begin to see small parts of yourself in them: each mistake made, every word uttered, every tire track through slush. Let's face it, we need more literature that evokes the confusion of our lives, of the horrible, beautiful mess. And here it is."
-Tanner Servoss |
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"Simply put, these stories are emotive. The characters are written in a way that makes you feel like you could easily switch lives with them.
Having recently moved to Central New York from Minneapolis, this book is like having a little piece of home with me. I can picture the neighborhoods and locations as I'm reading. For the first time since leaving, I feel homesick, maybe even missing the Midwest winters." -Amy |
"I thoroughly enjoyed Six Months in the Midwest. Be prepared to meet all kinds of people, all ages of people. Schummer is able to bring people to life on the page, people she apparently has observed and started thinking about imaginatively. Every story, except one, I believe, is in 3rd person. I especially enjoyed "The Parade"; "The Garbage Collector"; "Apron On, Apron Off"; "Nobody Moves in Winter"; and "The In-Between Girl." But they're all involving and definitely worth reading."
-Pearl |
"Ever wonder who all these people walking around your city are? You'll get to know many of them up close and personal in this consistently moving and intelligent collection of short stories. My favorite is Pretty as a Penny, which explores personal boundaries, social statuses and Sex World in compelling fashion. Be careful biting into Darci Schummer's stories, because sometimes they bite back."
-Shale N.
-Shale N.
About the author
Darci Schummer hails from the village of Fall Creek, Wisconsin. Primarily a fiction writer, she is the author of the story collection Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), co-author of the poetry/prose collaboration Hinge (broadcraft press), and author of the forthcoming novel The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, MAYDAY, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, Sundog Lit, and Pithead Chapel, among many other places. She has been nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and her work has also been selected as a Longform Fiction Pick of the Week. In addition to writing, she teaches at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College where she serves as faculty editor of The Thunderbird Review. She lives with her partner Tanner, pitbull Turnip, and cat Cokie Roberts in a big old house that always needs work.