Our People

by Ian MacMillan

Price $16.95 paper, 206 pages

ISBN 978-1-886157-67-5

I am a great admirer of Ian MacMillan's writing, and all his strengths are evident in the superb stories of Our People, all set in an obscure if not forgotten corner of rural America--upstate New York, on small farms and in conflicted families. They are distinguished by their powerful sense of place and most of all for the grim humor of their humanity.

—Paul Theroux

"Our People" lead hardscrabble lives of subsistence dairying and logging.  Through injury and illness, through abandonment and bereavement, they feel no self-pity—just wordless hate and unarticulated love.  Sons are beaten by fathers, fathers are beaten by life.  Little more than stubbornness makes these people possible—milks the cows, fells the timber, repairs the ancient, dangerous tractor—yet in every single story, nobility gleams through the muck.  Ian MacMillan has chronicled a culture exotic to most of us, through characters in whom we see precisely who we might have been.  His stories are invaluable and unforgettable. 

—Jonathan Penner

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Ian MacMillan is the author of a dozen previous books.  His honors include the O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, the Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction, the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction, the PEN-USA West Award, and the Hawai`i Award for Literature.  After growing up in New York state where the stories in Our People are set, MacMillan taught at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa for many years.

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