Kevin McIlvoy's Books

Little Peg

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Peg O'Crerieh is a wife, mother, creative writing instructor, and occasional resident of the Everview Residential Treatment Center, which she is once again preparing to leave. Awaiting Peg at home are her devoted family; the normal pressures of daily life; and, most important, the students in her Nontraditional English class, where the assignment is always to write about Peg. As Peg struggles to find her place in the outside world, she finds herself drawn into her students' stories. Usurping their material, revising their facts, Peg slowly inches toward the truth until she is finally able to leave the worst behind. By turns brilliantly comic and achingly sad, Little Peg is a portrait of a single woman, in extremis and in exultation, and of a life transformed by the retrospective powers of a gifted writer.

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Page Count

174

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611874297

ISBN 13

9781611874297

Hyssop

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Hyssop

By: Kevin McIlvoy

[hyssop (his ep) n. 1. A fragrant, blue-flowered plant (Hyssopus officianalus) of the mint family, used in folk medicine as a tonic, stimulant, etc. 2. A plant used in purifactory sprinkling rites by the ancient Hebrews] *** Red Greet, the narrator of Hyssop, is in jail again, as he has been often in his eighty-seven years. As he gives his jailer a dance lesson, Red begins to share with him his life story. Struggling to learn the simple steps, the jailer listens to Red's outrageous, incredible, yet utterly convincing accounts of the miracles he has witnessed and sometimes participated in directly. Red's stories center around several constants: his impoverished life as a guilelessly honest thief and grifter in Las Almas, New Mexico; his love for Recita Holguin; and, the miracle story dearest to him, his seventy-two-year friendship with Bishop Francisco Velasco. Frank and Red met in 1924 as Red's mother, a healer, worked her folk magic to help Frank's family survive violence and devastating turmoil. The boys immediately formed a deep and abiding bond. Frank, who becomes a Catholic priest and eventually a bishop, remains Red's lifelong confessor because he is the keeper of Red's secrets, and Red the keeper of his. The men are not only friends, but unlikely accomplices: they argue over Frank's car, a Monte Carlo with cathedral windows airbrushed on the hood; they promenade, naked, through the middle of the Hatch Chile Festival; they work to restore a statue of the beloved Virgen de Guadalupe, which "miraculously" begins to perspire blood-blood that bears a suspicious likeness to red paint. Through it all, Red confesses his many sins to Frank, always returning to the mysteries of a sin he feels he cannot be absolved of: his courtship of Recita during his wife Cecila's long illness. In telling how he has loved and been loved, in confessing how he has sinned and inspired others to sin, Red Greet seeks hyssop, the substance that might wash his soul clean. Hyssop is a stunning novel full of magic; it is an inquiry into the nature of religious faith and belief and into the power of moral dilemmas embedded in loving friendships and in spiritually rich but materially impoverished lives. Reading Hyssop, you will believe again in miracles of healing and in the haunting power of memories of the past. *** "Hyssop is a wonderful gift of faith to a cynical age. Only a book this smart, tough-minded, funny, beautiful and, yes, humble could burrow so deeply into both the doubting mind and the yearning heart." -Richard Russo, author of Straight Man "A radiant, mysterious novel, brilliantly lit by hard-won faith. Hyssop reminds us that we are all part of the last tribe of the unchosen: and that despite that we can be saved by the language of love." -Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever: Stories

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Page Count

108

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611873746

ISBN 13

9781611873740

57 Octaves Below Middle C

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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57 Octaves Below Middle C

By: Kevin McIlvoy

A hybrid collection comprised of short stories, flash fiction, and prose poems, the works in 57 Octaves Below Middle C enact the dilemma of self-forgetting. This book is for any reader who hears the states of dissonance that are disturbing and natural aspects of the human comedy.

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Page Count

186

Publisher

Four Way Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1945588136

ISBN 13

9781945588136

The Complete History of New Mexico

Stories

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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The Complete History of New Mexico

Stories

By: Kevin McIlvoy

Compelling and complex . . . Strange and wonderful." —The New York Times Book Review, in praise of McIlvoy's previous fiction I am going to write about the state of New Mexico and put in some maps and stuff from the encyclopedia. My theme is the Don Juan Onate trail and the Jornada Del Muerto. But I might write some other important things which as it turns out my stepmother got angry about and said she wouldn't type this until my Dad said "Dammit now it is history" and told her maybe there weren't commas in those days. "The Complete History of New Mexico" is no ordinary research paper, and this is no ordinary collection of short stories. Eleven-year-old Chum's "history" unfolds over three distinctive and increasingly disturbing sections. He writes that "Coronado explored around and found Santa Fe in 1610"; that "William Becknell was tracking wagons over everyplace in 1821"; and that every day his best friend, Daniel, is afraid to go home. Kevin McIlvoy intersperses the title novella with equally distinctive stories set in New Mexico. Laura, a plain, overweight nurse, encounters a terrified young man on his way to the Vietnam War and takes matters into her own hands. Zach spends time with his "white-trash" relatives and finds love's terrible and true face. The Complete History of New Mexico is a stunningly original collection that will further McIlvoy's growing reputation.

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Page Count

177

Publisher

Graywolf Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1555970478

ISBN 13

9781555970475

The Fifth Station

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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The Fifth Station

By: Kevin McIlvoy

In The Fifth Station, Matthew, the youngest of three brothers, has died at nineteen, inside a foundry smokestack in Illinois. The surviving brothers take their grief and misfortune to the desert landscape of New Mexico. There, one brother indulges the family failing...alcoholism. The other settles for life on the bum. The two compelling narratives--one by each of the surviving brothers--describe the process of making new lives from the ashes of the old ones.

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Page Count

107

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611874904

ISBN 13

9781611874907

Hyssop

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Hyssop

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Page Count

108

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611873746

ISBN 13

9781611873740

One Kind Favor: A Novel

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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One Kind Favor: A Novel

By: Kevin McIlvoy

Fiction. Based loosely on a tragic real-life incident in 2014, ONE KIND FAVOR explores the consequences of the lynching of a young black man in rural North Carolina. After the lynching of Lincoln Lennox is discovered and subsequently covered up in the small fictional community of Cord, North Carolina, the ghosts who frequent the all-in-one bar and consignment shop take on the responsibility of unearthing the truth and acting as the memory for the town that longs to forget and continues to hate. A reimagined Kathy Acker, the groundbreaking literary icon, engages Lincoln in a love triangle and brings a transgressive post-punk esthetic to the mission. The down-the-rabbit-hole satirical storytelling of ONE KIND FAVOR, Kevin McIlvoy's sixth novel, echoes Appalachian ghost stories in which haunting presences will, at last, have their way. "In ONE KIND FAVOR, Kevin McIlvoy crafts a novel we haven't seen before: a rare book about race and place that offers a nuanced take on the world we live in. This book feels vital for our times."--Nina McConigley "I describe Cord as 'spirit-haunted,' but is any place in America not haunted by ancestral misdeeds?"--Rion Scott Amilcar

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Page Count

272

Publisher

Wtaw Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1732982031

ISBN 13

9781732982031

57 Octaves Below Middle C

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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57 Octaves Below Middle C

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Page Count

186

Publisher

Four Way Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1945588136

ISBN 13

9781945588136

Little Peg

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Little Peg

By: Kevin McIlvoy

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Page Count

174

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611874297

ISBN 13

9781611874297

Book's by Kevin McIlvoy

Little Peg

Little Peg

Hyssop

Hyssop

57 Octaves Below Middle C

57 Octaves Below Middle C

The Complete History of New Mexico

The Complete History of New Mexico

The Fifth Station

The Fifth Station

Hyssop

Hyssop

One Kind Favor: A Novel

One Kind Favor: A Novel

57 Octaves Below Middle C

57 Octaves Below Middle C

Little Peg

Little Peg

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