How to Get Home; A Novella and Stories

Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1996. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Francois Camion (Author photograph). [10], 201, [5] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. Includes chapters on After Leston; How To Get Home, Open House, Adultery; From Ulysses, Kansas; Winter Months; Between Jobs; Lights, Driveway. War Story; At the Pharmacy; Propriety; The Route, Fresh Start, Nineteen, The Day After Tomorrow, and Why Are We Here? as well as Acknowledgments. This is a collection of previously published works, mostly from periodicals. The New York Times Book Review writes that Bret Lott "is a writer with a gift for evoking the small sadnesses of Life.'' Bret Lott (born October 8, 1958) is the New York Times author and professor of English at the College of Charleston. He is Crazyhorse magazine's nonfiction editor and leads a study abroad program every summer to Spoleto, Italy.
Lott was appointed to the National Council of the Arts by President George W. Bush and served a six-year term. He was a Fulbright Senior American Scholar in 2006 and writer-in-residence at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was invited by Laura Bush to speak at the White House as part of the White House Symposium on "Classic American Stories" in 2004. From the critically acclaimed author of "Jewel," "Reed's Beach," and "A Dream of Old Leaves," comes a new collection of short stories that explores the dangers and trials of everyday life. The people in these stories come from working lives, lives where the struggle for home and family is waged daily; lives where an ominous slip of paper on the office desk or a broken glass left lying on the kitchen floor signal the precariousness of what is held dear. From diners to waiting rooms to apartment complexes, the characters in "How to Get Home" struggle with disasters. But these are the quiet disasters of life--lost jobs, divorce, illness, death. And as these characters come face to face with these calamities, and struggle to overcome them, they become real. The opening novella, "After Leston," reintroduces Jewel Hilburn, the indomitable title character from "Jewel." In this poignant story, Jewel must come to terms with the cost of moving her family to California to create a better life for her retarded daughter. In the process, she learns a lesson in love that only her sacrifice could allow her to see. "How to Get Home" is about Paul, a man just starting a job in a new town. While moving his family into this new apartment, Paul is stricken with a mysterious illness. As his world becomes confined to his dark hospital room, he realizes that life continues without him, and he begins to understand that he is not as necessary as he once believed. In "The Day After Tomorrow," a financially strapped couple decides to check into a local motel to escape an oppressive heat wave. The plan seems to work until a strange desk clerk, a broken air conditioner, and a spoiled romantic interlude in the pool shows them that, perhaps, escape is impossible. Throughout, Lott creates a landscape of almost unremitting pain, a world where hidden griefs, too deeply felt to be denied, are never far beneath the surface. The sorrow that pervades the lives of his characters is credible and palpable.