Oceanography
Stories by Jeremy Griffin
Winner of The 2018 Orison Fiction Prize, selected by Lan Samantha Chang
Finalist for The 2019 Balcones Fiction Prize
paper / 160 pp. / $18.00
Orison Books
Print ISBN: 978-1-949039-04-7
E-book ISBN: 978-1-949039-15-3
Distributed to the trade by Itasca Books
1-800-901-3480 / orders@itascabooks.com
Publication Date: September 3, 2019
ABOUT THE BOOK
In his second story collection, Jeremy Griffin hovers like a loving but non-interventionist angel over the lives of characters at their most fragile, as they find within themselves unknown reservoirs of strength. These profound stories are marked by wisdom about hope and loss of hope, about attempts at healing on the paths of wounding.
PRAISE
Griffin masterfully weaves knowledge and philosophy into his stories. […] Griffin’s stories ask us impactful questions and show us how people want to understand their scars.
–Mid-American Review
Jeremy Griffin must have lived a few hundred years to learn the sorts of things about life that fill this book.
–John Darcy, Midwest Book Review
The stories in Oceanography are peregrinations into unmapped territory: the survival of innocence. An elderly man who has outlived his wife seeks solace in building bird-feeders while noting the “surprising strength of his heart.” A failing businessman prays to a photograph of his grandsons on the beach, an adolescent girl begins to comprehend the consequences of her attraction to an older boy, and the survivors of a school shooting reconsider their homicidal classmate. This beautiful collection is distinguished by unvarnished honesty, depth of compassion, and an uncanny awareness of that liminal region between our knowledge of what is irretrievable and our hope for deliverance.
–Lan Samantha Chang, judge of The 2018 Orison Fiction Prize
I’ve just finished reading Jeremy Griffin’s exhilarating collection Oceanography, and now I need to catch my breath and recover. Then I’m going to read it again. The title story alone is worth the price of admission. Brianna Copland’s desperate love will haunt your dreams and your days. The prose in these propulsive and unsettling stories is luminous and incandescent; the characters are riveting; the themes, complex and resonant. Jeremy Griffin is one savvy, lyrical, and fearless writer.
–John Dufresne, author of No Regrets, Coyote
A couple of days ago, I sat down with Jeremy Griffin’s collection Oceanography, to see if the stories could capture my interest. I think I first came up for air about 75 pages later. I did not previously know this young writer’s work, but suffice it to say that until I breathe my last, he will remain on my reading list. I almost never feel such enthusiasm for a book of stories. Every single one of them immediately engaged me and kept me engaged all the way to the end. There is so much life in these pages, so much genuine empathy for so many memorable people—I say “people” rather than “characters,” because they became so real for me. Griffin is one hell of a writer.
–Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Griffin is originally from Louisiana. He received his MFA in Fiction from Virginia Tech. He is the author of a collection of short fiction, A Last Resort for Desperate People (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). His stories, poems, and book reviews have appeared in such journals as Blackbird, Greensboro Review, Indiana Review, Iowa Review, Mid-American Review, and Shenandoah,among others. He was the 2017 Prose Fellow for the South Carolina Arts Commission, and he teaches at Coastal Carolina University, where he serves as faculty fiction editor for Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature. He lives in Myrtle Beach with his wife Karen and son Alex.