{"id":717,"date":"2016-08-05T11:18:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T15:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=717"},"modified":"2016-08-05T11:18:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T15:18:19","slug":"accepted-no-paper-cowboys-by-bryn-agnew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/accepted-no-paper-cowboys-by-bryn-agnew\/","title":{"rendered":"Accepted: “No Paper Cowboys” by Bryn Agnew"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our \u201cAccepted\u201d column,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Mid-American Review\u00a0<\/em>editors discuss why they selected stories, poems, or essays for publication. In this post, Fiction Editor Tom Markham\u00a0discusses the marvelous “No Paper Cowboys.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Genre: <\/b>short fiction<\/span><\/p>\n

Title: <\/b>\u201cNo Paper Cowboys\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Author: <\/b>Bryn Agnew<\/span><\/p>\n

MAR Issue: <\/b>36.1<\/span><\/p>\n

First Line:<\/b> \u201cYour parents stand on the porch as you park your car under the awning where the chicken snake ate the baby swallows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The evocative image in the opening line of Bryn Agnew\u2019s \u201cNo Paper Cowboys\u201d sets the stage for a tale of consumption. That the story is told in 2<\/span>nd<\/sup><\/span> person\u2014\u201cYour<\/i> parents stand on the porch\u201d\u2014brings us close to the affected character, allowing us an interiority crucial to understanding the unavoidable struggle that consumes this main character.<\/span><\/p>\n

The setup is one we\u2019re all familiar with\u2014a young college student returns home for a family Thanksgiving celebration\u2014yet the insight here feels fresh, cutting to the core a young person\u2019s first real identity crisis: feeling like a stranger both in that new living environment as well as in the old. This sense of having one foot in one world and one in the other is brought out nicely through the italicized lines that are interspersed throughout the narrative. These lines, usually quotes from, we can assume, texts and situations the boy encountered at school, are often direct, internalized responses to the actions or requests of this main character\u2019s family. Sometimes the interactions between internal and external are simple\u2014\u201c\u2019Why don\u2019t you go for a walk?\u00a0 <\/span>Get some fresh air.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s plain to see, the sun won\u2019t shine today, but I ain\u2019t in the mood for sunshine anyway<\/i>\u201d\u2014while other times they are a little more abstracted, pointing to the unease deep within the main character\u2019s psyche. <\/span><\/p>\n

The main character, the \u201cYou\u201d in the story, is doing his best to reconcile his estranged world of the past with his new fresh but ultimately unsatisfying frame of mind, but the efforts are fruitless. The futility is shown most starkly in his family\u2019s frustrated attempts to cheer him up with mundane, homey tasks. Sandwiched into this doomed task of fitting his new self back into his old life is the revelation that things don\u2019t appear to be going so well socially at college, either, so at the story\u2019s core, we are given this bit of insight\u2014the boy is unhappy in both worlds\u2014and we watch it eat away at him while his family attempts, always uselessly, to rescue him.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the boy finds himself relating to a hunted deer shot by his family for the meat we know things won\u2019t end well. The boy gets injured wrangling a cow on the family farm, a task his father conscripted him to, and in the final moments of the story, a fleeting image of the deer comes across the boy\u2019s visage, leaving us with one lingering italicized thought: \u201cYou cannot believe such a monstrous energy of grief can lead to nothing.<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo Paper Cowboys\u201d is a poignant look at the inexplicable pain that comes in periods of life\u2019s tough transitions. It ends on a very somber note, but it is one that leaves us strangely hopeful, for we come back to the 2<\/span>nd<\/sup><\/span> person voice, reading these words with our own voices echoing in our heads, realizing we\u2019re not alone in this struggle, even though it sometimes feels that way.<\/span><\/p>\n

What MAR<\/i> editors said about \u201cNo Paper Cowboys\u201d:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoyed the narrator’s silence when everyone else is constantly discussing him. I feel like this was a very effective way of seeing inside this character.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe second person is done really well, and to a wonderful effect. Lovely prose, lovely energy, lovely sadness; it packed a punch for sure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our \u201cAccepted\u201d column,\u00a0Mid-American Review\u00a0editors discuss why they selected stories, poems, or essays for publication. In this post, Fiction Editor… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accepted","category-fiction","category-mar-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}