JoeAnn Hart

In July 1976, a twenty-four-year-old white woman, Margo Olson, was found in a shallow grave in Stamford, Connecticut, with an arrow piercing through her heart. A few weeks later, Howie Carter, her black boyfriend, was killed by the police. Howie and Margo's interracial relationship held a distorted mirror to the author's own, with Howie's best friend, Joe. Joe's theory was that the police didn't have any evidence to arrest Howie; operating on the assumption that the black man is always guilty, they killed him instead. Margo's murder was never solved. Looking back at what might have happened in 1976, the author discovers a Bicentennial year steeped in recession, racism, and unrelenting violence. It was also a time of flourishing second-wave feminism, when young women were encouraged to do anything, if only they knew how. Stamford was in the midst of urban renewal, destroying historically black neighborhoods to create space for corporations escaping a bankrupt and dangerous New York City, just forty miles away. Organized crime followed the money, infiltrating Stamford at all levels. The author reveals how racism, misogyny, the economy, and corruption affected the young people's daily lives, and helped lead Margo and Howie to their deaths.

A True Story of Murder, Corruption, Race, and Feminism in the 1970s

Stamford '76

"... witty, profound, and beautifully observed..." --Margot Livesey "Hart's Maine landscape is rich with eccentric characters ... the reader will float on a cloud nine of classy entertainment." --Mameve Medwed "[Float] is all of these things: joyful and troubling, hilarious and somber, evocative and introspective." --Stefanie Freele, Necessary Fiction When everything around you is sinking, sometimes it takes desperate measures to stay afloat. When Duncan Leland looks down at the garbage-strewn beach beneath his office window, he sees the words God Help Us scrawled in the sand. While it seems a fitting message--not only is Duncan's business underwater, but his marriage is drowning as well--he goes down to the beach to erase it. Once there, he helps a seagull being strangled by a plastic six-pack holder--the only creature in worse shape than he is at the moment. Duncan rescues the seagull, not realizing that he's being filmed by a group of conceptual artists and that the footage will soon go viral, turning both him and the gull into minor celebrities. And when an unsavory yet very convincing local, Osbert Marpol, talks him into a not-quite-legitimate loan arrangement, Duncan can't help but agree in a last-ditch attempt to save the jobs of his employees. For a while, it seems as if things are finally looking up for Duncan--yet between his phone-sex-entrepreneur ex-girlfriend's very public flirtations and the ever-mysterious terms of his new loan, Duncan realizes that there's no such thing as strings-free salvation--and that it's only a matter of time before the tide rises ominously around him again. A wry tale of financial desperation, conceptual art, insanity, infertility, seagulls, marital crisis, jellyfish, organized crime, and the plight of a plastic-filled ocean, JoeAnn Hart's novel takes a smart, satirical look at family, the environment, and life in a hardscrabble seaside town in Maine.

A Novel

Float

Kipp Wessel

Diane Lefer

Gwen C. Katz

Nadja Lubiw-Hazard	

Ingrid L. Taylor	 

J. Bowers	

Helia S. Rethmann

Charlene Logan	

Marilyn Moriarty	 

Janay Brun

Denise Rettew	 

James Edward O'Brien	

Elisabeth Benjamin	

Setter Brindle Birch

Jacquie Vervain	

The third edition of the pioneering book series Animals speak. But humans are, with few exceptions, ill-equipped to understand them. Fortunately, we have writers. Writers play the critical role of interpreter, positioned between humans and the billions of nonhuman animals with whom we share this planet. In Among Animals 3, you will meet some of these writers as well as the animals who inspire them. The short stories in this edition feel more visceral, more urgent than ever. Perhaps it is climate change and the plight of animal species around the globe that compels us all, writers and readers alike, to take a closer look at what we are so close to losing. Perhaps it is also the plight of the human species and the many stresses of a tiny virus. The rapid spread of Covid has underscored that we humans are not just animals but highly social animals who can spread a virus faster than any other species on this planet. And perhaps because of Covid, we face the simple realization that life is short and we must make the most of our time and our talents. Fortunately, these writers have made the most of their talents in writing about animals, about species ranging from dogs and cats to chickens and pigs. In one story, we meet a donkey. In another, a jaguar. And we even encounter a species or two not yet formally identified. These stories challenge us see what we have tried to avoid seeing. It’s only by looking straight on—and acting upon what we witness—that we can ensure a better future for animals and the planet.

Among Animals 3: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction

"In Float, art is far more than decoration. It is the power of achievement and change. Out of it, we're encouraged to believe, may come the transformation of our world." — Maine Sunday Telegram"…a stellar model of eco-literature…" — Cape Ann Beacon"…witty, profound, and beautifully observed…" — Margot Livesey"[Float] is all of these things: joyful and troubling, hilarious and somber, evocative and introspective." — Necessary Fiction When everything around you is sinking, sometimes it takes desperate measures to stay afloat… When Duncan Leland looks down at the garbage-strewn beach beneath his office window, he sees the words God Help Us scrawled in the sand. While it seems a fitting message—not only is Duncan’s business underwater, but his marriage is drowning as well—he goes down to the beach to erase it. Once there, he helps a seagull being strangled by a plastic six-pack holder—the only creature in worse shape than he is at the moment. Duncan rescues the seagull, not realizing that he’s being filmed by a group of conceptual artists and that the footage will soon go viral, turning both him and the gull into minor celebrities. And when an unsavory yet very convincing local, Osbert Marpol, talks him into a not-quite-legitimate loan arrangement, Duncan can’t help but agree in a last-ditch attempt to save the jobs of his employees. For a while, it seems as if things are finally looking up for Duncan—yet between his phone-sex-entrepreneur ex-girlfriend’s very public flirtations and the ever-mysterious terms of his new loan, Duncan realizes that there’s no such thing as strings-free salvation—and that it’s only a matter of time before the tide rises ominously around him again. A wry tale of financial desperation, conceptual art, insanity, infertility, seagulls, marital crisis, jellyfish, organized crime, and the plight of a plastic-filled ocean, JoeAnn Hart’s novel takes a smart, satirical look at family, the environment, and life in a hardscrabble seaside town in Maine.

JoeAnn Hart

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