Showing results by narrator "Anthony Heald" in All Categories

Lady, suffocating in the car on a hot summer's day, slips into a feverish dream. Robert, her husband, watches her slip into unconsciousness as he drives. He's a soldier, a man of principle, well-educated and well-adjusted. But Robert is also a man with an agenda; he has married this young, wild lower-class girl to spite his father, and now he regrets it. How much does Lady know about Robert's intentions, and how far will he go to set things straight?

With the same profound attention to detail that is a hallmark of his previous acclaimed works of fiction National Book Award winner Ha Jin gives us a collection of stories that delves into the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. Ha Jin depicts here the full spectrum of immigrant life and the daily struggles - some minute, some grand - faced by these men, women, and children.

Echo Canyon is a pocket of wilderness outside Bend, Oregon, and the site of conflicting memories for Justin Caves and his father, Paul. It’s now slated for redevelopment. When Paul suggests one last hunting trip, Justin accepts, hoping to get things right with his father, and agrees to bring along his son, Graham. As the weekend unfolds, Justin is pushed to the limit by the taunting of his father, the demands of the terrain, and the menacing presence of bear....

Sandy Kinsolving's once-glittering life hangs by a threat; his future depends on his wife's inheritance and whether or not she's about to throw him out on his ear. What he wouldn't give for a solution to his money and marriage problems. If this were an Alfred Hitchcock movie, the solution would...

Maureen is an English teacher, and she’s had a long day. All she wants is a relaxing night out with friends, a few beers, and maybe the chance to forget the troubles of her past: The gambling ex-husband and the daughter who’d thrown her life away sleeping with married men. But her night—and maybe her life—is thrown off track when she leaves the bar and a man approaches her in the parking lot as she unlocks her car.

Discovered posthumously, this final novel by the author of the greatest American immigrant novel, Call It Sleep, reintroduces us to its protagonist, Roth’s alter ego, Ira, who abandons his controlling lover, Edith, in favor of a blond, aristocratic pianist at the artist colony Yaddo.

A Manhattan gumshoe pursues a convict to St. Louis, where he gets mixed up in a cop killing and nearly loses his own life at the hands of a B girl.

"Firelight" tells the story of a mother and her son who are spending the afternoon viewing apartments on a chilly day in Seattle, Washington. The two have no intention of renting one - they can only afford to live in a meager boarding house. Nevertheless, they spend every Saturday wandering through apartments and department stores, dreaming of a different life.

Miller is unlucky. That's why he's in a foxhole with the rest of Bravo Company. That's why his dad is gone and his mother remarried. That's why his teeth are falling out. Then, when the first sergeant tells Miller his mother has passed away, Miller thinks he's finally gotten lucky. Surely it's another Miller's mother, and now he can get away from the battalion for a couple days thanks to the Army's error. But Miller knows the future rarely has happiness in store.

John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, and the youngest man elected to the office. He was assassinated at the age of 46 in 1963. Arthur Ashe was an African American professional tennis player who won more than forty singles titles. He died in 1993 at the age of 49 of AIDS-related pneumonia. But imagine if the lives of JFK and Ashe had not been cut short? In this pair of speculative biographies, two writers suppose what might have been if JFK had lived long enough to serve out his presidency and what Arthur Ashe may have done to enhance his already notable legacy.

Gilbert saw Mary Ann first, but the second time he sees her she is dancing with his best friend, Rafe. The three of them begin hanging out all the time, driving around in the car Rafe got as a present for getting into Yale. But when Rafe goes out of town, Gilbert and Mary Ann keep the tradition going, seeing movies and going on drives...in Rafe's car no less.

Lying stiffly in their separate beds, a husband and his wife are woken in the middle of the night to the sound of their fighting neighbors. There are three of them - a man, a woman, and a young child. With their blasting stereos, violent interludes, and steamy make-up sessions, the wife has had enough. The husband, however, is preoccupied with other thoughts - sex, movies, and humanity's capacity to adapt and change.

Mr. Givens’ obituary is nothing remarkable, hardly something to remember at all. He led a quiet life, served in the Army, was married to the same woman for 42 years, and worked at the same job practically his whole life. He wasn’t a baseball player or a movie star, he was the furthest thing from a celebrity. In fact, the only thing noteworthy about his obituary is what happens after it runs in the newspaper, when he shows up in the office of the Metro editor wondering who decided to pronounce him dead.

Sergeant Morse is a risk-taker, playing chicken with the potential exposure of his sexuality. Julianne is looking for her brother, Specialist Hart, not knowing he’s shipped out to Iraq. In a surprising moment of tenderness, Sergeant Morse offers to help her, but whether due to fear of exposure or stubbornness, they might both be beyond rescue.

When Joe Reed was a teenager, he fell so deeply in love with Mary Claude Moore that his parents threatened to send him away. Decades later, he's living a normal life with his wife and their two children; yet in the thirty years since he's last seen Mary Claude, he hasn't stopped thinking of her. With recent news of her in hand, Joe begins to understand the reasons for which he has never stopped loving her - and just how pivotal that time in his life had been.

Dr. Booth drives his son, Owen, to Fort Steele Academy, where he hopes his son will thrive in a structured, disciplined environment that mirrors Booth's own upbringing. But after he drops Owen off at his new school, he's filled with a deep sense of doubt - about his decision to send his son away, about his childhood - and finds himself lost in more ways than one.

In this short story by the masterful Tobias Wolff, a teenage boy learns the joys - and struggles - of adult life.

Eager for independence and adult-like freedom, a teenage boy takes a summer job baling hay on a rural farm. Savoring the farm wife’s attention and the extra change in his pocket, the boy feels like a grown man. The fellow hands give him a sense of camaraderie - Clemson, a fastidious boy who attends the same high school; Eduardo, a talkative Mexican seasonal worker; and Miguel, a quiet man and Eduardo’s brother.

John didn't want a dog. He wasn't ready, he said. Grace, on the other hand, did want a dog, and when she brought Victor home from the pound, John made sure Grace knew it was her dog, her responsibility. But when Grace dies, John is left with just Victor and his grief, and he learns a new level of devotion.

Pete Ferry teaches high-school English in the wealthy suburb of Lake Forest outside of Chicago and moonlights as a travel writer. On his way home after work one evening, he witnesses a car accident that kills a beautiful woman named Lisa Kim. But was it an accident? Could Pete have prevented it?

While on a crowded bus near the Vatican, a man named Mallon - visiting Italy on business - feels someone reaching into his pockets, searching for his wallet. He elbows the pickpocket, seriously injuring the man. Driven by his guilty conscience, Mallon finds himself peering in on the life of an unfamiliar culture and learning more about the world than he ever could have imagined.