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“In The Gunman and the Carnival, Catherine Gammon mirrors the brightly fractured nature of our lives at the sharp edge of this American moment. Her characters are recognizable in their striving for human connection in our time of despair and isolation—and in their struggle for footing upon a sinking landscape. Stylistically limber and by turns meditative, restless, and moving, these stories bravely attempt to channel what it means to be alive in this world now, and now, and now.” - Lauren Acampora, The Hundred Waters
“Catherine Gammon’s The Gunman and The Carnival is a collection full of strikingly familiar disappointments and betrayals woven through with an appreciation for moments of beauty amongst the daily degradations of contemporary life. Told with precision and honesty, these stories are richly nuanced explorations of desire, regret, hurt, and hard-earned acceptance.” - Jenny Irish, I Am Faithful and Lupine
“Gammon sharply observes her characters, loves them for their flaws and their hopes, and moves them through worlds defamiliarized by her punchy, powerful prose. Reading The Gunman and the Carnival made me revel in the joy and intensity of what a story can show us." - Gwen E. Kirby, Shit Cassandra Saw
Catherine Gammon is author of the novels Isabel Out of the Rain, Sorrow, China Blue, and The Martyrs, The Lovers, and of the early story collection Beauty and the Beast. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, among others, as well as by residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, and Djerassi.
After growing up in Los Angeles, Catherine lived in Berkeley, and later in Ohio, Iowa, and Massachusetts before moving to New York, where she worked for The New York Review of Books. She left New York to join the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1992 and later returned to California for training and ordination at San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Dragon Temple/Green Gulch Farm. She lives again in Pittsburgh, with a garden and a cat.
Conents
Eudora Loved Her Life 3
A Vampire Story 15
Dangerous 25
In Absence 27
Agency 35
Claudine 39
Cloudy with a Chance of Rain 51
Pandemic Dreams 53
Cul-de-Sac 59
Pack Rat, All Will Be Well 67
Nathanael West Died Unknown 89
Stardust 95
Invisible Woman Dancing in a Cage 105
Cat Sitting for a Ghost 117
In the future perhaps he will have another chance 129
Buffalo 137
Endnotes 141
Acknowledgments 143