REPLACEMENT PARTS

A collection of linked short stories by Marc Dickinson

Now Available 

from Atmosphere Press

Winner of Literary Titan’s Gold Star Award

The ordinary lives chronicled in Replacement Parts are chronicled with extraordinary grace. These characters are often lonely and soul-sick, struggling to make ends meet, but we’re very glad to be in their company, because Marc Dickinson explores their lives with heart and intelligence, helping us better understand the beautiful, redemptive struggle of the human condition.

                                                        – Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal, Red Moon, and Thrill Me

There are no holds barred in Marc Dickinson’s rich and fearless collection of stories.  He dives deep in America’s dark soul—the addictions, the detentions, the diseases, the layoffs, the divided communities—and returns to the surface with pure gold.  The closer Dickinson brings us to tragedy, the more he attunes us to the beauty and kindness that might save us all.  You will come away from this book wiser, more compassionate, and more hopeful. 

                                                          –  Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of American Salvage and Mothers, Tell Your                                                                      Daughters

These stories by Marc Dickinson present us with characters who have led tough, hardscrabble lives. He writes beautifully about both lucky and unlucky people, and this book has the great virtues of compassion and keen observation.

                                                          –  Charles Baxter, author of The Sun Collective and Feast of Love

In these loving, devastating stories, generations of parents and children, lovers and friends and neighbors, struggle to do right by each other in small towns and harsh landscapes that don’t make it easy. How do people make a future, or even envision one, in circumstances that feel both unchangeable and precarious? Marc Dickinson has written a vivid, poignant, powerful book about people and communities trying to find a way forward.

                                                         –  Caitlin Horrocks, author of Life Among the Terranauts and The Vexations

Replacement Parts is not just a gripping collection of stories but a thought-provoking work discussing major issues affecting society.

                                                         – Frank Mutuma, Reader’s Favorite, Five-Star Rating

The haunting short stories of Replacement Parts embrace a sense of place [with] characters and events that compromise [their] ability to either truly get away from or form a new connection to [the region’s] culture and history. This collection builds atmosphere ….though seeming-disparate yet intertwined lives, embracing Iowa culture in the process…. As ordinary as many of the characters may first appear, there is much that is extraordinary in their perspectives. 

                                                          – D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review