Superman on the Roof

Book excerpt: Fiction. Winner of the 10th Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest, judged by Ira Sukrungruang. A concise and compelling novella-in-flash spanning decades from the 1960s to the present, Lex Williford's SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF offers an elegiac coming-of-age tale and a family portrait imbued with tragedy, guilt, grief, and forgiveness. The arguments, injustices, and triumphs of childhood echo into the adult world in unforgettable detail in these short powerful stories. This limited edition chapbook features letterpress covers and specialty endpapers. "SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF did not let me go. There is a red siren of urgency in Williford's every sentence, every word. It is a book that reiterates what Lee K. Abbott once said to me many years ago: 'Everything is the matter in the short story.' Everything is the matter in SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF. In its brevity, its pace, the contained voice of the consistent narrator, in the flashes of story about a family trying hard to find themselves after heartbreak." Ira Sukrungruang"