If I Had Two Wings: Stories

Randall Kenan

Feb 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by JD Jackson

About this audiobook

Mingling the earthy with the otherworldly, these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives. In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high-school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans. Shot through with humor and seasoned by inventiveness and maturity, Kenan riffs on appetites of all kinds, on the eerie persistence of history, and on unstoppable lovers and unexpected salvations. If I Had Two Wings is a rich chorus of voices and visions, dreams and prophecies, marked by physicality and spirit. Kenan's prose is nothing short of wondrous.

About the author

Randall Kenan (1963-2020) was the former chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He lived in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

JD Jackson is a theater professor, aspiring stage director, and award-winning audiobook narrator. A classically trained actor, his television and film credits include roles on House, ER, and Law & Order. JD was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of the Year for 2012 and 2013.