Stop Breakin Down Stories

What happens when ordinary people are pushed beyond their ordinary lives?What happens when we are challenged to transcend our everyday circumstances, take a fearful risk, accept the dare, perhaps change who we are?Treading a line between pain and passion, adventure and menace, STOP BREAKIN DOWN tells various stories of people driven to the brink of endurance and survival.In the title story, a group of young people commit themselves to a drunken car chase around the Baltimore/Washington beltway; in "Gegenschein," a young student leaves his campus life to submerge himself into the desolate wilderness of the Smokey Mountains; and in "The Magothy Fires" a boy seeks to become a man by participating in an ancient ritual of pain and courage.Set throughout the American South and other locales, John McManus's stories introduce a new, harrowing voice in American fiction, one that is both intimate and profound, savage and alive.AUTHORBIO: John McManus was born and raised in Blount County, Tennessee and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland.He is a graduate of Goucher College and is currently enrolled in the graduate writing program at Hollins University.His work has been published in Ploughshares.McManus, John C. is the author of 'Stop Breakin Down Stories', published 2000 under ISBN 9780312262785 and ISBN 0312262787.