Winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, this well-worked debut
collection of 11 stories delineates life's wrenching milestones:
divorce, moving, the death of a parent.Tomlinson's protagonists,
mostly citizens of rural Kentucky, are adults in various stages of
transition, not quite sure where they're headed. In the strong
opener, "First Husband, First Wife," Cheryl has had two subsequent
spouses but still can't break her connection with the baleful
Jerry, who keeps getting her into trouble with the law. "The
Accomplished Son" follows Polk, a young army specialist who returns
home from Iraq with his pregnant wife. He's too late to attend the
funeral of his father, wheelchair-bound for a dozen years after a
gun accident that involved the town lawyer. The rage of war
combined with a desperate urge to feel love for his unborn child
sends Polk on a terrible mission to the lawyer's house, seeking
revenge for the catastrophe that soured his father's life, and his
own. The two stories that together form the title feature the same
characters. "Things Kept" shows sisters Cass and LeAnn grappling
with a crisis: They need to raise quick money to pay off the
delinquent taxes their dotty mother owes on the family house in
Spivey, Ky. LeAnn, who lives in Ohio, hatches the idea of selling
Ma's antique desk to salesman Dexter Chalk, a former boyfriend with
whom LeAnn happens to be having an adulterous affair. In "Things
Left Behind," the lovers meet in a motel room out of a desperate
need to feel in control of their careening lives. Alcoholic Dex is
trying to stay sober, while LeAnn recognizes that the person who's
changed in her marriage is not her narrow-minded husband, but
rather herself. Like all of Tomlinson's characters, these two ring
true and utterly human.A wonderful collection notable for its clean
prose and tone of quiet, stubborn dignity. (Kirkus Reviews)
The stories in ""Things Kept, Things Left Behind"" explore the
ambiguities of kept secrets, the tangles of abandoned pasts, and
uneasy accommodations. Jim Tomlinson's characters each face the
desire to reclaim dreams left behind, along with something of the
dreamer that was also lost. Starkly rendered, these spiraling
characters inhabit a specific place and class - small-town
Kentucky, working-class America - but the stories, told in all
their humor and tragedy, are universal. In each story, the
characters face conflict, sometimes within themselves, sometimes
with each other. Each carries a past and with it an urge to return
and repair. In ""First Husband, First Wife,"" ex-spouses are
repeatedly drawn together by a shared history they cannot seem to
escape, and they are finally forced to choose between leaving the
past or leaving each other. LeAnn and Cass are grown sisters who
conspire to help their prideful mother in ""Things Kept.""
""Prologue"" is a voyeuristic journey through the surprisingly
different lives of two star-crossed friends, each with its
successes and pitfalls, told through their letters over thirty-five
years. In ""Stainless,"" Annie and Warren divide their possessions
on the final night of their marriage. Their realtor has advised
them to ""declutter"" the house they are leaving, but they discover
that most of the clutter cannot be so easily removed. The choices
are never simple, and for every thing kept, something must be
abandoned. Tomlinson's characters struggle but eventually find
their way, often unknowingly, to points of departure, to places
where things just might change.
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