Review of Hallelujah Station in Chapter 16
M. Randal O’Wain’s stories limn the South’s inequities and anguished history
Autumn House is happy to share that M. Randal O’Wain‘s debut short story collection Hallelujah Station has received a glowing review in Chapter 16. Reviewer Hamilton Cain notes how O’Wain has “beautifully carved out his own space to explore lives we’ve pushed to the margins” in his collection of stories set against the backdrop of the South. Here’s an excerpt from the review:
O’Wain’s South is the wayside, teeming with run-down marinas, God and guns, apartments cluttered with DVDs and CDs in neighborhoods ‘where windows without plywood were a luxury.’ His characters linger at forks in their roads: a teenaged painter mauled by his brother and wracked with a desire to forgive; a worker ‘laid off from the Little Debbie factory’; a trans man yearning for stability in a partner. In another writer’s hands these lost souls would feel familiar, but O’Wain cores out the humanity beneath the violence, with a keen eye for the quirky, revelatory detail.
Autumn House is grateful to Chapter 16 and Hamilton Cain for taking the time to get to know O’Wain’s work. Read the full review here.
