The Dave Store Massacre

Ron Ebest

2011 թ. ապր · Chicago Review Press

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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.

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