What do you think?
Rate this book
Would You Shut Up, Please
"If you call yourself a serious reader but still haven't discovered Lewis Nordan, shame on you." -"The Seattle Times"Lewis Nordan's cult following began in 1991 when Algonquin published his first novel, "Music of the Swamp. "His second novel, "Wolf Whistle," was inspired by one of the nation's most volatile and notorious racial incidents. Nordan was fifteen years old at the time, and living in Mississippi, just down the road from where young Emmet Till was murdered for daring to whistle at a white woman. "Wolf Whistle" was hailed by Randall Kenan in "The Nation" as "an immense and wall-shattering display of talent." It was Nordan's most acclaimed work and winner of the Southern Book Award. He published four more books with Algonquin, including "Lightning Song," "The Sharpshooter Blues," "Sugar Among the Freaks, " and a memoir, "Boy with Loaded Gun." His fictional works, all set in the American South, have the ability to break your heart "and" keep you laughing at the same time. The "Los Angeles Times" review got it exactly "Lordy, Lordy, can Lewis Nordan write!Horrible things happen, and horribly funny things, too, in the Delta town of Arrow Catcher, Miss."When Lewis Nordan died in 2012, he was working on a collection of stories. This story, "Would You Shut Up, Please, " is the tale of a man who investigates a disturbance at his elderly neighbors' home and discovers more about their lives than he cares to know.Algonquin is committed to keeping all of Lewis Nordan's remarkable work available in print and as e-books, to ensure that new generations of readers will continue to discover his wild imagination, his boundless talent, and his singular voice. We hope you'll enjoy "Would You Shut Up, Please" and will want to read more from this legendary storyteller.
20 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2014
3 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Lewis Nordan
25Ìýbooks74ÌýfollowersFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lewis Nordan (August 23, 1939 � April 13, 2012) was an American writer.
Nordan was born to Lemuel and Sara Bayles in Forest, Mississippi, grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He received his B.A. at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, his M.A. from Mississippi State University, and his Ph.D. from Auburn University in Alabama. In 1983, at age forty-five, Nordan published his first collection of stories, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. The collection established him as a writer in the grotesque Southern tradition of William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, and Flannery O'Connor. It also established a place for Nordan’s fiction, the fictional Arrow Catcher, Mississippi, a small town in the Mississippi Delta based loosely on Nordan’s hometown of Itta Bena.
After the short-story collection The All-Girl Football Team (1986) followed Music of the Swamp (1991), a novel/short-story cycle featuring Nordan's spiritual alter ego, the young Sugar Mecklin, as the protagonist. The book features aspects of magic realism that would become one of Nordan's trademarks, along with a peculiar mix of the tragic and the hilarious.
Wolf Whistle (1993), Nordan's second novel, was both a critical and public success. It won the Southern Book Award and gained him a wider audience. The book deals with one of the most notorious racial incidents in recent Southern history: the murder of Emmett Till.
The novel The Sharpshooter Blues (1995) is a lyrical meditation on America's gun culture, as well as another portrait of the grotesque lives in Itta Bena. With the coming-of-age novel Lightning Song (1997), Nordan moved from Itta Bena to the hill country of Mississippi. The novel still features Nordan's magic Mississippi realism, complete with singing llamas and poetic lightning strikes.
In 2000, Nordan published a "fictional memoir," Boy With Loaded Gun.
Before retiring in 2005, Lewis Nordan lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he taught Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
Lewis Nordan (August 23, 1939 � April 13, 2012) was an American writer.
Nordan was born to Lemuel and Sara Bayles in Forest, Mississippi, grew up in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He received his B.A. at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, his M.A. from Mississippi State University, and his Ph.D. from Auburn University in Alabama. In 1983, at age forty-five, Nordan published his first collection of stories, Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair. The collection established him as a writer in the grotesque Southern tradition of William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, and Flannery O'Connor. It also established a place for Nordan’s fiction, the fictional Arrow Catcher, Mississippi, a small town in the Mississippi Delta based loosely on Nordan’s hometown of Itta Bena.
After the short-story collection The All-Girl Football Team (1986) followed Music of the Swamp (1991), a novel/short-story cycle featuring Nordan's spiritual alter ego, the young Sugar Mecklin, as the protagonist. The book features aspects of magic realism that would become one of Nordan's trademarks, along with a peculiar mix of the tragic and the hilarious.
Wolf Whistle (1993), Nordan's second novel, was both a critical and public success. It won the Southern Book Award and gained him a wider audience. The book deals with one of the most notorious racial incidents in recent Southern history: the murder of Emmett Till.
The novel The Sharpshooter Blues (1995) is a lyrical meditation on America's gun culture, as well as another portrait of the grotesque lives in Itta Bena. With the coming-of-age novel Lightning Song (1997), Nordan moved from Itta Bena to the hill country of Mississippi. The novel still features Nordan's magic Mississippi realism, complete with singing llamas and poetic lightning strikes.
In 2000, Nordan published a "fictional memoir," Boy With Loaded Gun.
Before retiring in 2005, Lewis Nordan lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he taught Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 5, 2024
Just enough to leave you wanting more.
While waiting for another of his works to become available, I grabbed this story as a warm-up. Published posthumously, it is a quirky tale of neighbors and how well we do (or don't) ever know them. Not generally a fan of endings that leave you hanging, I wonder if there is something to be said for a story that encourages you to imagine multiple outcomes from a single event. This one certainly does.
While waiting for another of his works to become available, I grabbed this story as a warm-up. Published posthumously, it is a quirky tale of neighbors and how well we do (or don't) ever know them. Not generally a fan of endings that leave you hanging, I wonder if there is something to be said for a story that encourages you to imagine multiple outcomes from a single event. This one certainly does.
November 11, 2018
Catchy
As always it's a classic Lewis Nordan. I love to read any piece that is written by Nordan. This is just one of his great short stories.
As always it's a classic Lewis Nordan. I love to read any piece that is written by Nordan. This is just one of his great short stories.
June 2, 2020
It brings to mind the saying about "if a book is good, it cannit be`too long; if it is bad, it cannot be too short" `something like that. I do wish this story was longer. haunting and thoughtful.
Read
September 7, 2024You’ve got to be kidding me
July 25, 2019
Bwahahaha!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.