Middle Murphy (Illinois Short Fiction)

The stories of Mark Costello are powerful, wrenching tales of life in a dislocated somewhere between the solidly down-and-out and the nervously middle class.Mark Costello, a native of Decatur, Illinois, is the author of the story collections The Murphy Stories (University of Illinois Press, 1973), which won the St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, and Middle Murphy (University of Illinois Press, 1991). The Murphy Stories has received praise and one of its stories, Murphy's Xmas was anthologized in several collections.