In 2020 The Catholic Reading Challenge is reading 24 different short stories by 12 different authors. Each month we will focus on one author, reading two stories by that author. During each of our bi-weekly podcast episodes we will discuss the stories in turn.

When we were making the selections for this year several months ago, we came across a connection between Edward P. Jones and James Joyce. We had already decided to include Joyce, as we wanted to read selections from The Dubliners. Apparently, Jones was inspired by Joyce when writing his own collection of stories, Lost in the City, set in his own hometown city of Washington D.C. Our selections for this month are taken from this volume. Here’s an excerpt from the Amazon description:

A magnificent collection of short fiction focusing on the lives of African-American men and women in Washington, D.C., Lost in the City is the book that first brought author Edward P. Jones to national attention. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and numerous other honors for his novel The Known World, Jones made his literary debut with these powerful tales of ordinary people who live in the shadows in this metropolis of great monuments and rich history.

Theses tales are quite powerful, and the characters in them could be people you pass every day on the streets of D.C. We’re looking forward to discussing the two stories listed above, but you may very well be compelled to read the whole collection. And don’t miss the author’s introduction (from the anniversary edition); it gives an important glimpse of him in his own words and an understanding of his motivations and feelings in writing this compilation.

Copyright 2020 Jessica Ptomey