Moonshine Promises
Ebook
Overview
Traditional romantic comedies end with a wedding. Not so in Moonshine Promises. Instead, this tale begins with an elopement as teenagers Evan and Mae run off to avoid a shotgun wedding, a decision that initiates decades of marital adventures and misadventures. Narrated from Evan’s perspective, these stories navigate his fears and loves as he makes his bewildered way through life. And it’s about everything furnishing that life--from a teapot cottage in a jelly cupboard to a snow globe containing a horse-drawn sleigh carrying a miniature family through a forest.
“Moonshine Promises delivers on its promise with
characters and stories that are by turns loony, engaging, and
seriously moving—often all in the same story. The concluding
‘Cycles’ succinctly shows Van Rys’s easy consciousness of the
collection’s greater meaning as a coherent story cycle set in
southwestern Ontario (fictional territory of Stephen Leacock,
Robertson Davies, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood). These stories
take readers on a most satisfying trip through life and love,
failure and faith.”
—Gerald Lynch, author of The One and the Many: Canadian Short
Story Cycles
“In Moonshine Promises, Van Rys gives us an irresistible
collection of poignantly witty stories based on events of his own
life, events that resonate with readers. His wordplay, ironic
twists, character depictions, clever endings, and protagonist’s
musings keep us fascinated. Like all unforgettable literary works,
these show us what sort of creatures we are—entangled in our
various love, marriage, and family predicaments.”
—Mary Dengler, English Professor emeritus, Dordt University
“With psychological deftness and linguistic play, John Van Rys’s
linked collection of stories ranges over the whole mess and delight
of the human experience through the small details of several Dutch
Canadians bumbling through the decisions that come to make up a
life; the whole shines brightly through its interlocking
parts.”
—Liz Harmer, author of The Amateurs
“Moonshine Promises takes the reader on an exhilarating
journey through one family’s life, dancing effortlessly between
then and now and making us eager for what’s still to come. We laugh
and struggle along with the narrator as he strives to be the best
family man he can be, through marriage’s ups and downs and the
epically baffling gift of parenthood. With glistening prose and a
deft storyteller’s hand, Van Rys has crafted a worthwhile portrait
of the ordinary and sublime, and we can’t help but feel lucky to be
along for the ride.”
—Brent van Staalduinen, author of Boy and Nothing but
Life
- Title: Moonshine Promises
- Author: John Van Rys
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2021
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666712636, 9781666712629, 9781666712612, 1666712639, 1666712620, 1666712612
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666712636
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-10-29T20:33:56Z
John Van Rys lives on a hobby farm outside Dunnville, Ontario,
with his wife April, dogs, cats, horses, and free-run egg-laying
hens. He has also survived raising four children, all of them now
released upon an unsuspecting world. When he’s not at home caring
for animals, he spends his time as an English professor at Redeemer
University in Hamilton, Ontario, teaching literature and writing.
And when he’s not teaching, he’s writing—including poems and
stories.