Alone With the Owl
(paperback, 141 pages, first edition July 2000)
is a collection of fourteen short stories by Alan Davis, a native
of Louisiana who now teaches English at the University of
Minnesota. Davis is also one of the editors of the journal
American Fiction.
The title of the book is the title of the thirteenth story in the
collection. In Alone With the Owl (18 pages), a minor
league baseball player, haunted day and night by the imaginary
image of an owl with large, staring eyes, finds himself robbing a
convenience store. He is unable to explain his behavior to his
wife; indeed, he cannot explain it to himself. She says that he
should "plead insanity."
The first story in the book is Traveling by Moonlight (13
pages). A group of men, and a separate group of women, "tell
stories" which enable them to sense and do various things,
and go various places, which arise from their imaginations. The
last story is Rough God Goes Riding (7 pages). A soldier,
who doesn't feel as though he should be a soldier, endures the
early morning drills, and has his eye on a female G.I. who has been
promoted to Delta Force.
The story Suddenly I Meet Your Face (8 pages) was the
basis of a rock opera adapted and directed by Todd Deming. It was
performed in 1992.
Alan Davis has received deserved praise from Dorothy Allison
in the New York Times Book Review.
( Click here to search Amazon.com for all titles by Alan Davis )
Alone With the Owl
is Number 97 in the Minnesota Voices Project series
published by New Rivers Press. The project is an annual
competition the purpose of which is to promote Minnesota's
emerging writers. New Rivers Press is a nonprofit publishing
company funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA), the Minnesota State Arts Board established by the
Minnesota State Legislature, and several benefactors.
( Click here to search Amazon.com for all titles in the Minnesota Voices Project series )