The Metal Shredders

(Paperback)

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Description

John Bonner is sure that anytime now he will recover from the sting of his recent separation from his wife. And hes begun to wonder if he truly wants to spend the rest of his days running the family scrap-metal business, an operation where his employees are likely to have made the very license plates they now shred. His sister, Octavia, has just returned to Ohio from Boston to nurture the pain of her own broken relationship, and she is more certain: Following in the footsteps of their imperious father is a recipe for emotional disaster.

But then two of Johns more eccentric workmen discover thousands of dollars stashed in the trunk of a car, the remains of a drug deal gone bad. The question of what to do with this unexpected cash draws John and his sister into the lives of their newfound collaborators, and sends them all on a surprising journey of high jinx and the heart.

In The Metal Shredders, Nancy Zafris offers up a refreshingly wise, offbeat, and thoroughly convincing look at blue-collar America. Hers is a world rich in humor, steeped in closely held traditions, and filled with gently endearing, slightly crazed characters trying to discover just who they are. In the process they discover much about love, loyalty, family obligation, classand yes, scrap.

Reviews

** A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ** "A funny and surprisingly poignant story ... the eccentricities of plot, setting and character are delightful." -- The Baltimore Sun "Delightful." -- The San Francisco Chronicle "An abundantly talented writer ... entertaining and illuminating ... Zafris steadily uses the accretion of gritty details to give her novel authenticity and weight." -- The New York Times Book Review "Remarkable wit and honesty ... a remarkable debut." -- Winston-Salem Journal "I could not put it down ... funny, intriguing and smartly written." -- The Sacramento Bee "A sometimes zany, sometimes touching odyssey ... full of the sweat of real labor and the sinews of class guilt." -- The Christian Science Monitor

Author Bio

Nancy Zafris is the series editor for the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction, a position she took after nine years as fiction editor of The Kenyon Review. Her other books include The People I Know, Lucky Strike, and The Home Jar. She is the recipient of many awards, two National Endowment for the Arts grants and has taught at many universities, including Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic as a Fulbright Fellow. Each June she teaches at the Kenyon Review Adult Summer Workshop, where she is also associate director.