Tom Drury

"Drury is an absolutely delightful writer who has carved out a world of his own in American fiction, one that is odd, revealing, and yet filled with love."--Library Journal The award-winning author of the cult classic The End of Vandalism returns to the Midwestern county he's chronicled over four decades for a panoramic tale of fate, found families, and the revolutionary possibilities of love A lonely highway, a traveler, and a revolver . . . Teenage Rocky and his aunt Helen's roadside discovery on a winter afternoon sets off a mysterious yet inevitable chain of events that will assemble citizens of Grouse County in a quest for knowledge, romance, and an occasional shared supper with a decent bottle of wine. Characters from Drury's previous novels--the stoic sheriff, the red-headed photographer, the retired thief--are joined by a vibrant new cast including a trio of teens in a secret club named after a nineteenth-century suffragette, a reverend doctor who counsels her flock to perform good works and dance on houseboats, and an amateur film scholar who inspires a meet-cute in a plasma donation center. Marked by uncanny dialogue, subversive humor, touches of surrealism, and indelible descriptions of natural and human beauty, West of Loveland is a warm and polyphonic portrait of a singular community navigating a version of contemporary life with grace and an enduring belief that something good might happen. Drury's masterwork and the capstone of what is now the Grouse County quartet, West of Loveland offers a revolutionary view of the rural Midwest and a quiet homage to American democracy.

Tom Drury revisits the community of Grouse County, the setting of his landmark debut, 'The End of Vandalism'. When fourteen-year-old Micah Darling travels to Los Angeles to reunite with the mother who abandoned him seven years ago, he finds himself out of his league in a land of magical freedom. Back in the Midwest, an ethereal young woman comes to Stone City on a mission that will unsettle the lives of everyone she meets.

Tom Drury returns to the Midwest to spend a life changing autumn weekend in the company of a family whose memebers all want something without knowing how to get it: for Charles (aka Tony) it's an heirloom shotgun: for his wife, Joan, the imaginative life she once knew: for their young son, Micah, a sense of the limits of his world (in search of which he prowls the empty streets at night), and for Joan's daughter, Lyris, a stable base from which to begin to grow up. A delightful novel from a modern master.

An utterly original and compelling novel from "one of our living masters (McSweeney's), originally published in 1998 and now re-issued by Grove with a new introduction--a conversation between the author and Daniel Handler. Paul Emmons has his faults--envy, lust, naivete, money laundering, and art forgery to name but a few. A fallen accountant and scamster, Emmons and wife Mary are exiled abroad, though they enjoy frequent and inadvisable returns to New England, the region of his crimes, to check in on the property they own but cannot claim. With this, the stage is set for Drury's darkly comic novel of love, death, guilt, redemption, and the various forms of clam chowder. Through a series of flashbacks and bizarre encounters, we see Paul's life as a college student in Quebec; his unfortunate professional beginnings in Rhode Island as business associate of Carlo Record, the one-armed president of the fraudulent company "New England Amusements"; and his stint as an investigative journalist. As time passes, Paul is tracked down by Carlo's cronies--Ashtray Bob, Line-Item Vito, and Hatpin Henry--who try to coerce Paul into stealing the infamous John Singer Sargant painting "The Black Brook" from the Tate gallery in London. Instead, Paul begs Mary, a painter, to reproduce the Sargant, in an attempt to outwit Carlo and his henchmen; a plot that produces comic consequences. Through it all Paul strives to find and accomplish his mission in life, and myriad characters contrive to tell their stories--of broken promises, nightmarish evenings, and identities lost and found in this "irresistibly droll portrayal of an All-American liar, loser, and innocent" (Kirkus).

"Reading Pacific makes me once again fall in love with Drury's words, and his perception of a world that is full of dangers and passions and mysteries and graces."--Yiyun Li In Pacific, Tom Drury revisits the community of Grouse County, the setting of his landmark debut, The End of Vandalism. When fourteen-year-old Micah Darling travels to Los Angeles to reunite with the mother who abandoned him seven years ago, he finds himself out of his league in a land of magical freedom. Back in the Midwest, an ethereal young woman comes to Stone City on a mission that will unsettle the lives of everyone she meets--including Micah's half-sister, Lyris, and his father, Tiny, a petty thief. An investigation into the stranger's identity uncovers a darkly disturbed life, as parallel narratives of the comic and tragic, the mysterious and quotidian, unfold in both the country and the city.

"Drury is a truly great writer."--Esquire"A beguiling novel . . . perceptive and captivating."--The New York Times"Startling and utterly original."--Newsday In this mesmerizing novel, Tom Drury once again journeys to the quiet Midwest to spend an action-packed October weekend in the lives of a precarious family whose members all want something without knowing how to get it: for Charles, an heirloom shotgun; for his wife, Joan, the imaginative life she once knew; for their young son, Micah, a knowledge of the scope and reliability of his world, aided by prowling the empty town at night; and for Joan's daughter, Lyris, a stable foot from which to begin to grow up. Sometimes together, sometimes crucially apart, father, mother, son, and daughter move through a series of vivid encounters that demonstrate how even the most provisional family can endure in its own particular way.

The new novel from the award-winning author of The End of Vandalism is a wry and sophisticated heist drama. Set in the rugged region of the Midwest that gives the novel its title, The Driftless Area is the story of Pierre Hunter, a young bartender with unfailing optimism, a fondness for coin tricks, and an uncanny capacity for finding trouble. When he falls in love, with the mysterious and isolated Stella Rosmarin, Pierre becomes the central player in a revenge drama he must unravel and bring to its shocking conclusion. Along the way he will liberate $77,000 from a murderous thief, summon the resources that have eluded him all his life, and come to question the very meaning of chance and mortality. For nothing is as it seems in The Driftless Area. Identities shift, violent secrets lie in wait, the future can cause the past, and love becomes a mission that can take you beyond this world. In its tender, cool irony, The Driftless Area recalls the best of neonoir, and its cast of bona fide small-town eccentrics adrift in the American Midwest make for a clever and deeply pleasurable read from one of our most beloved authors.

Ten years ago, Tom Drury's groundbreaking debut, The End of Vandalism, was serialized in The New Yorker, was compared to the work of Sherwood Anderson and William Faulkner by USA Today, and was named a Best Book of the Year in multiple publications. Now, appearing simultaneously with his first new novel in six years, Drury's debut is back in print. Welcome to Grouse County -- a fictional Midwest that is at once familiar and amusingly eccentric -- where a thief vacuums the church before stealing the chalice, a lonely woman paints her toenails in a drafty farmhouse, and a sleepless man watches his restless bride scatter their bills beneath the stars. At the heart of The End of Vandalism is an unforgettable love triangle set off by a crime: Sheriff Dan Norman arrests Tiny Darling for vandalizing an anti-vandalism dance and then marries the culprit's ex-wife Louise. So Tiny loses Louise, Louise loses her sense of self, and the three find themselves on an epic journey. At turns hilarious and heart-breaking, The End of Vandalism is a radiant novel about the beauty and ache of modern life.