Last Call (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780803215405)

K. L. Cook's debut collection of linked stories spans three generations in the life of one West Texas family. Events both tender and tragic lead to a strange and lovely vision of a world stitched together in tenuous ways as the characters struggle to make sense of their lives amid the shifting boundaries of marriage, family, class, and culture.

A series of unusual incidents--a daughter's elopement, a sobering holiday trip, a vicious attack by the family dog, a lightning strike--provokes a mother of five to abandon her children. An oil rigger, inspired by sun-induced hallucinations, rescues his estranged wife, who doesn't appreciate his chivalry. In the wake of his father's and brother's deaths, a teenage boy finds a precarious solace working with his mother at a country-western bar. A cosmetics salesman schemes to buy Costa Rica and flirts dangerously with mobsters in Las Vegas. A woman fleeing her fourth marriage arrives at a complicated understanding of love and responsibility.

Railroad worker and conman, grieving son and battered wife--these characters explore the limits of family fragility and resilience. Their stories--suggesting unlikely connections between comedy and pathos, cruelty and generosity--promise a hard-won dignity and hope.

Author: K. L. Cook
ISBN-10: 0803215401
ISBN-13: 9780803215405
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2004
Pages: 252
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 8.82h x 5.48w x 0.97d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2004 pg. 821
Booklist 10/01/2004 pg. 307
Library Journal 10/15/2004 pg. 58
Foreword 03/01/2005 pg. 47
Foreword 08/19/2009