Bartians
Volume 4
Based on James Joyce’s Dubliners, Bartians offers a retro-1990’s portrait - humorous, violent, and spinning with political subtext - of the Southern queer identity, creeping out of history from the stories of a city whose unique take on Americana has long fascinated artists and investors like the filmmaker Terrence Malick. The citizens of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, expose their faults, hopes, and pain in a compilation of 14 short stories about not-so-everyday life. An Iraq War soldier’s funeral is hastily planned. A yoga instructor struggles with addiction. A football player asks another boy to prom to spite his teacher. A group high school transgender students and misfits find a safe place to hide from the Y2K apocalypse. A formerly respectable doctor is ostracized. A politician and his family find themselves at the center of a scandal. A group of rough women sneak backstage at an Itzhak Perlman concert. Each short story exposes the wondrous and often menacing forces behind the pains and triumphs of the people called Bartians.
This novel by Kevin Snow fictionalizes journalism stories such as the teacher's walk out, the opioid epidemic, and Trump's rise among middle America.
