The Dave Store Massacre

Ron Ebest‏

أبريل 2011 · Chicago Review Press

معلومات عن هذا الكتاب الإلكتروني

The Dave Store is quite possibly the greatest retail enterprise in American history. Selling everything from lawn mowers to Pop Tarts to wine-cask-sized jars of dill pickles, the Dave Store doesn't just dominate the retail market, it is the retail market. That is, until an employee at an outlet in small-town Jackson, Missouri launches a wildcat strike. Then company owner Dave Blandine, a retail legend known for merciless cost-cutting and a glass eye the size of a doorknob, decides to take a stand against organized labor. He sends his half-witted son and heir, along with the megalomaniacal head of a security company and nine heavilyarmed agents to quell the unrest. They are met by Jackson's sharp-as-a-blade lady mayor, and its laconic, marijuana-smoking police chief who is famous for his two-gunned marksmanship. Standing between these antagonists is the Dave Store's local manager, a sycophantic nebbish with a penchant for Byronic poetry, and his wife, a 15-year-old girl in a 25-year-old woman's body. As the strike deteriorates, both sides reach for their guns. And the town moves inexorably toward mass murder. But cheer up. It's a comedy. Loosely based on the story of the Matewan massacre-- the 1920 shoot-out between striking coal miners and armed strike-breakers in small-town West Virginia--The Dave Store Massacre is a satire in an American tradition that extends from Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker to Christopher Buckley and Paul Mooney.

نبذة عن المؤلف

Ebest teaches courses in literature and writing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.