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Informationen zum Autor David McGlynn grew up in Houston, Texas, and Southern California. His story collection, The End of the Straight and Narrow , won the 2008 Utah Book Award and was named an "Outstanding Achievement" by the Wisconsin Librarians' Association. His stories and essays have appeared in Men's Health , The Huffington Post , Best American Sports Writing , and numerous literary journals. He teaches at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and sons. A lifelong swimmer, he captured a national championship in the 500-yard freestyle at the 2001 United States Masters National Championships. He continues to compete in open-water swimming races all across the country, and on most mornings is the first one in the pool. Klappentext This debut collection received critical acclaim and is now available for the first time in trade paper. The stories in "The End of the Straight and Narrow" take on the inner lives of the zealous, their passions and desires, and the ways religious faith is both the compass for navigating daily life and the force that makes ordinary life impossible. In "Landslide," an aspiring evangelist witnesses the miraculous event that launches his career, but fails to notice the mental decline of his college roommate. In "Moonland on Fire," a divorced, born-again father, his new wife, and his estranged teenage son battle to save their dilapidated home from a massive fire. In "Deep in the Heart" a dying boy reveals his final wish to his estranged parents: he wants to kill a deer. In "Seventeen One-Hundredths of a Second" an aging virgin is drawn into a precarious friendship. The five linked stories that comprise the collection's latter half focus on a woman blinded suddenly while giving birth, who years later begins a process of disappearing that confuses her family and leads to ultimately violent and disintegrating ends. Ranging from the coastal highways of Southern California, to the mountains above Salt Lake City, to the swampy bayous and pine forests surrounding Houston, Texas, the stories often take place against the backdrop of disaster--a landslide, a fire, a drowning, a hurricane--as the characters question whether faith illuminates the world or leaves them isolated within it....
