MONARCH: Stories subverts the reader's common perceptions about how love can heal, how loss and suffering can transform, and how every character deserves a second chance. America's city scars, sewers, alleyways, and bars are landscape to their wars, as characters heal and transform under wind turbines and on open roads, in golden cornfields and with the wails of Chicago blues. Heroes in this collection are the marginalized, the sufferers, the down-trodden, the misfits, the wanderers, and the wounded, shaped by grief but not defined by their scars.
MONARCH honors each human being's capacity for change. Characters drive the collection, turning up the dial to raise the volume of voice for unsung heroes who are shades of the sufferers and healers in all. In collection, MONARCH is an exploration of the human condition through a lens of the damaged who learn to love through small acts of kindness, given and received. MONARCH's characters bear traumas with their bodies, and often, they transgress. They break in, break down, and ultimately, break open.
An inclusive invitation, MONARCH aims at an intimate portrayal of scarred characters on American streets beating the drum of current culture against the fierce rhythm of critical social justice issues. With this at its heart, the collection Includes a reading guide written by the author with prompts intended to inspire discourse between readers, writers, and students making the work of special interest to librarians, teachers, book clubs, and beyond.
Foreword by Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas.
"It’s evident that the author’s heart and soul went into this collection and that alone makes it an impactful read … Readers of literary fiction in particular will enjoy what this book has to offer."
"Libraries and readers seeking stories about addiction, transformation, success, and failure will find MONARCH: Stories captures a series of alterations and relationships that reflect love, loss, and the outer limits of the underbelly of American culture and influence. Highly recommended, this literary work will especially spark book club discussions of contemporary women's writings that are firmly rooted in emotional and social change."
"Brokenness and struggle abound in this collection of short stories, but so does the possibility of change and growth. I think what I appreciated about this book the most is the gritty context these stories take place in. In the places I've worked I've seen this brokenness and grown up around it to a large extent. It's the world I know, but there are also occasions of beauty and revelation. In some ways, Tobias reminded me of what I feel when I read Flannery O'Connor. The most unlikely people experiencing flashes of grace even if it's not what you would expect. Tobias is clearly a talented writer and this is a collection I think that will connect with many people that contemporary fiction may not."
