"What Beattie did for urbanites, Cheever and Updike for suburbanites, a younger generationOmstead, Abbott, Cullen, and now Benedictis doing for the rural population. Only 22 and recipient of the 1986 Nelson Algren Award, Benedict has published stories in the Chicago Tribune and Ontario Review. His world is regional, tough, raw, male; these nine stories deal with the mountainmen, sheepfarmers, and hograisers of rural West Virginia. "Booze" describes the rampages of a white rogue boar. When the narrator and his friend Ken catch sight of him while digging post holes, they go after him, their only weapon a brush hook used to clear scrub. With echoes of Ahab and the white whale reverberating, Ken kills the beast, but not before he has broken Ken's leg. In this and other stories, Benedict's talent is certainly equal to his vision and his insight."...
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"What Beattie did for urbanites, Cheever and Updike for suburbanites, a younger generationOmstead, Abbott, Cullen, and now Benedictis doing for the rural population. Only 22 and recipient of the 1986 Nelson Algren Award, Benedict has published stories in the Chicago Tribune and Ontario Review. His world is regional, tough, raw, male; these nine stories deal with the mountainmen, sheepfarmers, and hograisers of rural West Virginia. "Booze" describes the rampages of a white rogue boar. When the narrator and his friend Ken catch sight of him while digging post holes, they go after him, their only weapon a brush hook used to clear scrub. With echoes of Ahab and the white whale reverberating, Ken kills the beast, but not before he has broken Ken's leg. In this and other stories, Benedict's talent is certainly equal to his vision and his insight."
Library Journal
My first book, from way back in 1987.