Uncommon Weather: Alaska Stories

Uncommon Weather is an eclectic mix of character-driven stories that delivers a panoramic picture of Alaska-- from the cold city streets of Anchorage to picturesque but emotionally treacherous small Alaska towns; from the rough-and-tumble commercial fishing world of the distant Aleutian Islands to a remote river in the Brooks Range, where the vast and unforgiving Arctic wilderness puts romance to a severe test.

Richard Chiappone's characters hail from a wide range of socioeconomic strata, each one attempting to figure out the difficult question of how best to live among others. Odd connections abound. In the seriocomic title story, a lonely middle-aged woman, weary of her austere Alaskan life and her crumbling marriage, picks up a hockey stick and a younger man and tries to brawl her way to some better future. A man diagnosed with an apparently terminal illness is caught up in a catastrophic criminal undertaking masterminded by a precocious seventeen-year-old girl. A young boy, determined to fit in with his edgier peers, goes through a metamorphosis, becoming a strange new creature he's never seen before. With sometimes hilarious missteps, each character stumbles in and out of predicaments that are by turns tender, heartbreaking, dangerous, and even violent.

Told with great empathy and often deeply ironic, wry, and sardonic humor, these stories are a counterpoint to the usual mythos, illuminating an Alaska not usually portrayed in books, on TV, or in movies.

Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Published: 09/23/2024
Pages: 168
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781646426362


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 08/14/2024

About the Author
Richard Chiappone teaches writing classes at the Kachemak Bay Campus of the Kenai River College and for 49 Writers. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of national magazines and anthologies. A two-time winner of the Robert Traver Award and the recipient of an Alaska Council on the Arts Literary Award and a grant from the Alaska State Council on Arts and Culture, he has published three books of stories and a novel, The Hunger of Crows.