Hank Stuever's Books

Off Ramp

Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

By: Hank Stuever

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Off Ramp

Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

By: Hank Stuever

I'm the one they send to the trailer park outside Chimayo, New Mexico, to see the place where the guy went crazy and shot somebody. I'm the one who gets sent to the monster truck show, Lollapalooza concerts, the world's biggest bridal fair. Readers warm to my style . . . unless it drives them to apoplexy."-H.S. Take the off ramp to the world of Hank Stuever, a truly original writer who captures the humorous and haunting rhythms of modern American lives Hank Stuever's funny, touching reports take us to everyday places where the increasingly unusual realities of today's world run rampant. Stuever--twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize--calls this terrain the American Elsewhere. He finds it by bypassing Big News and taking off ramps to places where seemingly ordinary people lead lives just slightly off-kilter. Stuever's Elsewhere extends through trailer parks, roller rinks, malls no longer sparkling, and suburbs where robot dogs growl and bored children jump off rooftops using Hefty-bag parachutes. From Star Wars conventions to credit disasters, from snipers to missing persons, there is always something happening in Elsewhere-and Hank Stuever never misses a scintilla of the action. In Off Ramp, his destinations include Plano, Texas, home of two friends both named Angie ("Plano princesses") who turn home décor disasters over to a TV decorating show and wind up at war against orange carpet. In Washington D.C, we meet a pony-tailed "sofa surgeon" who confronts the mysteries of the universe and couches that won't go through doorways. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a spiral-permed secretary begins an odyssey toward marriage that takes her from anxiety dreams ("I'm walking down the aisle and nobody is looking at me or anything") to anxiety that is no dream. And we are there. We visit discount funeral homes ("Let's say you're dead..."), campgrounds where international bonds are formed ("We are from Netherlands, and we are for two days wonderink, who it is you are storage facilities where America keeps its strangest secrets. We meet the men who drew the comic-book characters (including Wonder Woman) Stuever loved as a child professional bowlers, waterbed aficionados, and some Texans on "debris drives" in search of pieces of the fallen Columbia shuttle. Finally, we travel to Stuever's hometown of Oklahoma lCity where the bombing of the Alfred P.Murrah federal building has created a kind of Elsewhere he has never seen before. You never know quite where Hank Stuever is going to take you. Off Ramp is the terrific debut of a fresh, humane, one-of-a-kind journalistic voice.

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Page Count

324

Publisher

Henry Holt and Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466863447

ISBN 13

9781466863446

Tinsel

A Search for America's Christmas Present

By: Hank Stuever

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Tinsel

A Search for America's Christmas Present

By: Hank Stuever

A heartfelt, hilarious look at the evolution of a half-trillion-dollar American holiday Hank Stuever turns his unerring eye for the idiosyncrasies of modern life to Frisco, Texas, a suburb at once all-American and completely itself, to tell the story of the nation’s most over-the-top celebration: Christmas. Stuever starts the narrative as so many start the Christmas season: standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs on Black Friday. From there he follows three of Frisco's true holiday believers as they navigate through the Nativity and all its attendant crises. Tammie Parnell, an eternally optimistic suburban mom, is the proprietor of "Two Elves with a Twist," a company that decorates other people's big houses for Christmas. Jeff and Bridgette Trykoski own that house every town has: the one with the visible-from-space, jaw-dropping Christmas lights. And single mother Carol Cavazos just hopes that the life-affirming moments of Christmas might overcome the struggles of the rest of the year. Stuever's portraits of the happy, mega-churchy, shop-until-you-drop community in Tinsel are revealing and riotously funny, showing how our ancient rituals of celebration have survived—and succumbed to—the test of time.

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Page Count

345

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0547427573

ISBN 13

9780547427577

Off Ramp

Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

By: Hank Stuever

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Off Ramp

Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

By: Hank Stuever

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

324

Publisher

Henry Holt and Company

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466863447

ISBN 13

9781466863446

Book's by Hank Stuever

Off Ramp

Off Ramp

Tinsel

Tinsel

Off Ramp

Off Ramp

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