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Zusatztext Josephine Humphreys author of Dreams of Sleep and Rich In Love An extraordinary book...full of surprises. Bret Lott is a talent to be reckoned with. Informationen zum Autor Bret Lott is the author of five highly acclaimed novels, The Man Who Owned Vermont, A Stranger's House, Jewel, Reed's Beach, and The Hunt Club, as well as two collections of widely anthologized short stories, A Dream of Old Leaves and How to Get Home, and a memoir, Fathers, Sons, and Brothers. He lives with his wife and two sons near Charleston, South Carolina, and teaches at the College of Charleston and Vermont College. Klappentext When Rick Wheeler's wife walks out on him, he nearly drowns in despair. So the RC Cola salesman throws himself into work -- setting sales records, winning a promotion, burying himself in the lonely present while he scours the past for hope. Then at last on a cold Vermont morning, a hunter and his prey show him unexpectedly, haltingly, the way back to love and faith. Leseprobe CHAPTER ONE I liked this plumber. He had come to the front door and knocked solidly three times, then three times more before I could answer. I liked that, liked the sound six square knocks made through the apartment. I was there alone. I had things to sort out. I opened the door, and the plumber stuck out his hand. "Lonny Thompson," he said. "Landlord sent me up. You've got a leak somewhere in your bathroom." "Rick," I said. We shook hands. He knew how to shake hands; grasped my hand just past the knuckles, then squeezed hard and shook. I judged he was fifty, fifty-five years old. He said, "Glad to meet you. Now where's this damned leak?" He led me to the bathroom, as if he'd been here plenty of times, though I'd never seen him around the building before. We walked through the front room into the kitchen, then into the bathroom, the plumber turning his head, looking everything over. There wasn't much left in the apartment; my wife had taken most everything. Only the sofa bed and the black-and-white portable were left in the living room, one of those small rented refrigerators in the kitchen. Even the hamper in the bathroom was gone. "Moving in?" he asked once we were in the bathroom. He didn't look at me. I said, "Well, not really." I didn't want to get into it. He set the toolbox on the toilet lid. "Oh," he said, and started unbuttoning the gray down vest he wore over a red and black plaid wool shirt. He took off the vest, then the shirt, and dropped them both on the floor. Under the wool shirt he wore a gray workshirt, the same color as his pants, Lonny stitched in red thread above the shirt pocket. He had on old-fashioned plastic-framed glasses, the kind of frames that started out thick across the top and thinned down to wire along the bottom edge of the lenses. He went right to business, got down on his hands and knees and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. I said, "Cold outside?" "Where have you been?" he said, his head under the sink. "Thirty-five degrees and dropping. Supposed to get the first snow tonight. Believe it? Snow already." I said, "I guess I haven't been paying much attention." I squatted down next to him to see if I could tell what he was doing, if I could learn something. "Bet you haven't been paying much attention to any leaks then, neither." He laughed. "Your landlord called me this morning. Five feet square of ceiling in the apartment below came right down on the breakfast table." He pulled his head out from under the sink and looked at me. "How'd you like that for breakfast?" We both laughed. He went back under. I said, "I know. He called me and told me the whole thing. That's a funny story." I stood up slowly, pushing on my knees, then picked up his shirt and vest from the floor. They both smelled of cigarettes -- years of cigarettes burning down to the filter, I imagined, while he drained sink ...
