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Things Kept, Things Left Behind (Iowa Short Fiction Award) cover art

Things Kept, Things Left Behind (Iowa Short Fiction Award)

By: Jim Tomlinson
Narrated by: Josiah John Bildner
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Publisher's Summary

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.

©2006 Jim Tomlinson (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"A splendid debut collection of short stories. This is an impressive first book in a venerable series by a very talented new voice in American fiction." (Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain)
"Brilliant debut collection. A perfect collection of headshots and heartshots from a gifted first-rate storyteller." (Jill McCorkle)

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