''Rock Springs'' is a collection of short stories by author

Richard Ford Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel '' The Sportswriter'' and its sequels, '' Independence Day'', ''The Lay of the Land'' and ''Let Me Be Frank With You'', and t ...

, published in 1987 and largely dealing with dysfunctional mothers and fathers and their effects on young male narrators. As with his earlier novels ''A Piece of My Heart'' (1976) and ''The Ultimate Good Luck'' (1981), Ford's stories are notable for their lack of sentimentality and undercurrent of menace, characteristics that led ''Granta'' editor

Bill Buford Bill Buford (born 1954) is an American author and journalist. Buford is the author of the books ''Among the Thugs'' and ''Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscan ...

to include Ford in his '

Dirty realism Dirty realism is a term coined by Bill Buford of ''Granta'' magazine to define a North American literary movement. Writers in this sub-category of realism are said to depict the seamier or more mundane aspects of ordinary life in spare, unadorned l ...

' categorization alongside fellow short-story writer

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s. Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mi ...

. Carver selected Ford's short story "Communist" for inclusion in ''The Best American Short Stories 1986''.

The ten stories of ''Rock Springs'' appear in this sequence:Richard Ford, ''Rock Springs'' (

Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...

; reprint edition US, 2009). *"Rock Springs" *"Great Falls" *"Sweet Hearts" *"Children" *"Going to the Dogs" *"Empire" *"Winterkill" *"Optimists" *"Fireworks" *"Communist"

References

1987 short story collections American short story collections {{1980s-story-collection-stub

Contents

References