APPLETON, WIS. — David McGlynn, assistant professor of English at Lawrence University, will conduct a reading from his first book “The End of the Straight and Narrow” Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 201 on the Lawrence campus. The reading is free and open to the public.
Called “smart, sharp, soul-testing American fiction” by “Snow, Ashes” author Alyson Hagy, “The End of the Straight and Narrow” is a collection of nine short stories that examines the inner lives, passions and desires of the zealous and the ways religious faith is both the compass for navigating daily life and the force that makes ordinary life impossible.
Set in locales that range from the coastal highways of Southern California to the swampy bayous surrounding Houston, Texas, McGlynn’s stories often take place against a backdrop of disaster — a landslide, a fire, a drowning, a hurricane. His characters question whether faith illuminates the world or leaves them isolated within it.
McGlynn joined the Lawrence faculty in 2006. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from the University of California, Irvine and a M.F.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. While a graduate student at Utah, he served as managing editor of Western Humanities Review.
His fiction and creative nonfiction works have appeared in numerous literary journals, among them Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, Mid-American Review, and Shenandoah.
