Book description
A petty thief is bested by a widow and her card-playing friends; a
farmer must cope with raising his baby granddaughter; a train engineer
inadvertently causes a major disaster and finds himself amidst a media
frenzy; a young man falls in love with a voice on the radio; and a
camera repairman discovers a woman's family history in a roll of
undeveloped film. Ordinary people are confronted with extraordinary
situations, with results that are sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, but
always life changing. In stories filled with heart and humour, Tim
Gautreaux explores the stresses and strains of everyday life as his
characters struggle to make amends for their mistakes and hope for
different, better days to come. Born and raised in Louisiana, Tim
Gautreaux lives there still with his wife and is writer in residence at
Southeastern Louisiana Univeristy. His work has appeared in Harper's,
the Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards,
and Best American Short Stories. Acclaimed as 'one of the best writers
to have emerged in the 1990s (Kirkus Reviews), his novels are THE NEXT
STEP IN THE DANCE, which won the 1999 SEBA Book Award, the hugely
acclaimed THE CLEARING, and THE MISSING. A collection of his short
stories have been published for the first time in the UK as WAITING FOR
THE EVENING NEWS.
