Last Call

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
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 08/01/2004
Pages: 252
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 8.82h x 5.48w x 0.97d
ISBN: 9780803215405

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

About the Author

K. L. Cook is the author of two other award-winning books of fiction, The Girl from Charnelle and Love Songs for the Quarantined. He teaches creative writing and literature at Prescott College and teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Spalding University.

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