The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs

Celebrated Southern author George Singleton delivers a new collection of short fiction, brilliant and absurd, for fans of George Saunders and Tom FranklinA restaurant owner runs into trouble when his wife starts a well-intentioned, poorly named rooster rescue. A boy navigates his parents’ split between a stretched phone cord and a flooded septic tank. A drunk sequestered in the middle of nowhere wakes up to find a tractor parked in his driveway. And in a big Cadillac, a grandfather and a grandson and a wayward dog hit the road, searching for a life not downloadable, nor measured in bandwidth.Loosely linked by characters and themes, The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs follows shysters and schemers, film buffs and future ornithologists, unlikely do-gooders, and the men who make up Veterans Against Guns in North America, all doing the best they can with what they possess in smarts and cunning. With Singleton’s signature comic flair, these stories peer through the peepholes of small-town South Carolina into the lives of everyday martyrs—prodigal sons, wayward fathers, and all those who are a little of each.