Author Page: Ron Parsons

The Sense of Touch by Ron Parsons

Ron Parsons author photoReleased April 30, 2013.

Press kit here. Pre-Orders available on the Publications & Store page.

Ron Parsons is a writer living in Sioux Falls. Born in Michigan and raised in South Dakota, he was inspired to begin writing fiction in Minneapolis while attending the University of Minnesota. His short stories have appeared in such places as The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Flyway, and The Onion. This is his debut collection.

About the Collection:
 Sprung from the variously lush, rugged, and frozen emotional landscapes of the north country, this luminous collection of stories captures the progress of a diverse ensemble of souls as they struggle to uncover themselves and negotiate a meaningful communion, of any kind, with the world around them. A brilliant but troubled Bangladeshi physics student searches for balance, acceptance, and his own extraordinary destiny after his father disappears.  When a Halloween blizzard immobilizes Minneapolis, a young woman is forced to confront the snow-bound nature of her own relationships and emotions. During an excursion to an idyllic swimming hole hidden in the Black Hills, two old friends unexpectedly compete for the affections of an irresistible, though married, Lakota woman. Like a mythical expedition to reach the horizon or the quest to distill truth from the beauty around us, the revelation confirmed by these imaginative stories – elegant, sometimes jarring, always wonderfully absurd – is that the very act of reaching is itself a form of touch.

Purchase link:
Aqueous Books Store

Title Availability

Press kit here.
Publisher Direct
Kindle edition
Ingram distribution
Barnes & Noble
Amazon.com

Interviews, Excerpts, & Press

A review in ForeWord Reviews
A video interview with the Sioux Falls Argus Leader
A write-up on Red Room
An article in the Argus Leader
News coverage by KELOLAND News, Sioux Falls, SD

Advance Praise for The Sense of Touch:

"[I]t is clear that Parsons knows the land he mines beyond the superficial sights, sounds, and smells, down to the feeling, the touch. And in this collection, he explores those who live and love in the cold and beautiful Midwest, all the way to their bones."
—ForeWord Reviews, Spring 2013

Ron Parsons in the sensitive sensual stories of The Sense of Touch explores the infinite spaces between the cold cold stars as well as the subatomic bosons and protons of timid touches, the uncertain certainty in Zeno’s paradox of never connecting connections. These tales are the winsome hissing of busy signals lisping in the icy nicely nice neighborhoods of the missing Midwest at the intersection of polite delight and absolute zero at the bone.
—Michael Martone, author of Four for a Quarter and Michael Martone

Chiseled out of the frozen environment of the northern Midwest, Parsons’ narratives reveal the cultural richness of Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota. His characters struggle to find their place in a region that is rapidly changing, and yet their loneliness is nevertheless reflected in the vast landscapes that threaten to devour them. Parsons alleviates the heaviness of this psychic geography with humor and inventive plot twists, resulting in a unique style that promises to keep the reader engaged until the final page has been turned.
—D. Seth Horton, Series Co-Editor, Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri

Ron Parsons' stellar debut collection is full of stories as changeable and unpredictable as a Midwestern springtime, as fresh and clear as a hidden waterfall, as sudden and perplexing as an unsolved murder. At once playful and deadly serious, hilarious and sad, these are the kinds of stories that will involve your own memory even as they show you a world you’ve likely never seen.
—Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road

In The Sense of Touch, Ron Parsons writes, “we can all use the feeling of a long deadening freeze. It makes you appreciate the mercy of a thaw.” The characters in these haunting stories experience the freeze and thaw of emotions. There is a silence and quiet in these people from the heartland searching for something more, something deeper, something they don’t even know – whether at the bottom of a freshly dug hole in a South Dakota wheat field, deep inside a small Minneapolis house buried by the snows of a blizzard, or nestled in the basket of a hot air balloon floating over the Crazy Horse Monument. Traveling along with these engaging stories, one feels a longing for human touch and talk. We are seeing this writer at the beginning of his career. We’re going to be seeing a lot more from him. Lucky for us.
—Tricia Currans-Sheehan, editor of The Briar Cliff Review

 

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