The Immortal Woman Of Asteronga & Other Stories

This is the second collection of Michael Cooney's stories set in Asteronga, a mythical place inspired by the history and people of his home town in the Mohawk Valley of New York state. An earlier set of stories, entitled Asteronga, New York, appeared in 2012 and focused on a boy's growth to adulthood in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This collection goes deeper into the past and explores themes found in several of his novels. Early Mormonism is at the center of "When the Saints Came to Town," as it is in The True Story of Joseph Smith. "Roxalana" is a version of Roxy Druse & the Murders of Herkimer County. And the 1912 strike described in "Factory Girl" will be familiar to readers of The Red Nurse. Other stories feature individuals from the history of Little Falls. A version of Colonel Guy Beardslee can be found in both "Bad Water" and "When the Colonel Takes Command." The amateur detectives Arphaxad Loomis and Nathaniel Benton appear here as well as in an earlier story inspired by the Underground Railroad. Chief Cooney and Chief Long, the town's defenders of life and property for many decades, are in several stories inspired by murder cases drawn from news accounts available at the Little Falls Historical Society. "Pursuit of Happiness" is a happier version of an tragic schoolteacher murder in a nearby village. "Marxist of the Mohawk" describes a young couple in the era of McCarthyism. "Battle at Indian Cave" features a gang of immigrant children who shelter a disabled boy about to be drafted in 1918, while "A Displaced Person" uncovers the past of one of the many refugees who arrived in Asteronga following the second world war. "Sister Margaret Mary" is a tribute to the buried lives of the often desperate women who taught Asteronga's Catholic children in an earlier era. Even the immortal woman from which the collection takes its name is based on an actual, seemingly ageless woman who held court on Mary Street long ago.

• | Author: Michael Cooney
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Sep 12, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 142 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 172026547X
• | ISBN-13: 9781720265474