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by Patrick Strickland
A searing debut short story collection set in north Texas, rooted in the rich tradition of Southern short fiction by Breece D'J Pancake and Flannery O'Connor.
The celebrated journalist's 10 short stories are as vivid and character-driven as his reportage from the battlefronts of the Middle East ...
Loosely inspired by the 1996 heroin epidemic in the grittier suburbs of Dallas, this gripping collection of short stories — many published previously in leading literary journals — are intimate, honest, and character-driven, and don't shy away from difficult themes.
From protagonists struggling with the effects of alcoholism and unemployment, to neo-Nazi skinheads in Dallas, to conspiracy theories, these various colorful characters are depicted with clear-eyed compassion, as well as moments of resilience and even humor, as they work their way to a transcendence of their current, very American, very Texan, situation.
"Strickland laces his hardscrabble scenes with lyricism … In each piece, grief underscores the characters' recklessness, imbuing the collection with an unsentimental but tender emotional register. Strickland's humane depictions of people living on the margins acknowledge the forces that shape them." —Publishers Weekly
"Patrick Strickland writes with economy, muscle, and beauty, and these stories can both break and warm your heart at the same time." —Michael Farris Smith, author of Lay Your Armor Down and Desperation Road
"Easily the best collection of short fiction I've read in years, A History of Heartache not only proves Strickland's skill as a reporter is matched only by his gift as a storyteller, it marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction." —Marya Hornbacher, New York Times-bestselling author of Wasted and The Center of Winter
This information about A History of Heartache was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Patrick Strickland is a journalist from Texas. He's the author of three nonfiction books on the far right and migration: You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave (2025), The Marauders (2022), and Alerta! Alerta! Snapshots of Europe's Antifascist Struggle (2018). His reporting has appeared at The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Time, Al Jezeera, and elsewhere. His fiction has appeared in Epiphany, Pithead Chapel, and the Porter House Review, among others. He was a 2024 de Groot Foundation Writer of Note. He is currently the managing editor of Inkstick Media, based in Athens, Greece.
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