| |
 |
Winner of the 2007 Texas Review Fiction Prize |
SplintervilleCliff Hudder
Near starvation in Northern Georgia, Confederate private Henry
Wallace of Hood's Texas Brigade accidentally ingests psychotropic
mushrooms before marching into the second day of the Battle of
Chickamauga, but lives to tell about it in a long (forty-one-foot) letter
to his dead comrade's father. Or does he? As Private Wallace's
meandering tale, scrawled on a roll of wrapping paper, unravels,
historians and scholars battle in footnotes over whether this document
full of peculiar claims, internal inconsistencies, and anachronistic
content is a first-hand report or an elaborate forgery.
"This is a stunning debut by a master storyteller."—Wendell Mayo
"I don't recall many historical novellas or novels abounding in
comedy. Another distinctive technique is the pseudo-footnotes. They
remind me of Nabokov's footnotes in Pale Fire."—Robert Phillips
"Hudder's evocation of another time and place is enhanced by his
editor's protesting voice, both of which lend good humor to
counterpoint the poignant story of young lives wasted in war."—Clay
Reynolds
"In a manner reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges, Cliff Hudder weaves
a tale of fact, fiction, legend and imagination that is intriguing,
enthralling and believable."—Robert Flynn
_________________________________________________________
CLIFF HUDDER teaches English at Montgomery College in Conroe,
Texas. An MFA graduate of the University of Houston, his stories
have appeared in numerous publications, and his work has received
the Barthelme Award, the Michener Award, the Peden Prize, and the
Brazos Bookstore Short Story Award from the Texas Institute of
Letters. Splinterville is his first book.
| |