Unsung Heroes of American Industry: Stories

After a successful turn with the novel Goats, Mark Jude Poirier returns to the short story format with brilliant results. The short story requires a certain discipline to develop characters while advancing a specific plot, and Mark is equal to the task. He allows nuance and inference to fill in a history for his characters that make them at once grandiose and everyday, triumphant and vulnerable, sympathetic and pathetic. He takes their foibles and victories and shows us that in this race we call human, Mark is at the finish line recording effort and cheering (or laughing and showing us how to also).

Naked Pueblo was a great introduction to Poirier's unique take on pop culture/college days and thrift store life..I found Goats to be even funnier and twice as hard to put down. I have read it three times.Now Unsung Heroes comes thru in classic form.This time around the humor is a little more subtle but the stories are much richer than in Naked Pueblo). My wife read me the entire book on my drive from Norfolk to New Orleans, and i cant wait to read it for myself on the drive back...

I've been a fan of Poirier's work for a while, and I think Unsung Heroes is his best work yet. He has a gift for telling stories that manage to be outrageously funny and crushingly sad at the same time. You can tell the author's having fun when he's writing, and that fun is contagious. Even in the saddest stories--the ones that reveal characters coping with loss, loneliness, and alienation--you get to enjoy a wild ride on the way to that moment of illumination and empathy. "Worms" and "Gators" are spectacular, and I'll never forget how hard I laughed when I read about the invention of packaged, pre-scrambled eggs in "Buttons." Thank you, Mark Poirier, for writing so well, for eschewing the conventional, and for being unafraid to entertain your readers. I'm looking forward to the next book!

Wow! Each story is more powerful than the last, but each is unique in its voice, setting, and theme (although sexuality seems to be a popular one!). I read Poirier's Naked Pueblo and Goats with great interest because I went to graduate school in Tucson, but Unsung Heroes of American Industry takes the reader to every corner of America. Highly recommended.

yet another witty, intelligent, thought-provoking, twisted book from the ever delightful mark jude poirier. his odd characters fit right in with all the grostesques in literary history. you almost feel you need to keep children away from these protagonists, but boy wouldn't they be interesting companions on a long plane ride. i am eagerly anticipating his next book!