The Grand Scheme of Things

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In Bridgeport a fictional college town in western New York the residents of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Grand Scheme of Things</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> work against their limitations. Through illness infidelities enduring connection and triumph these characters and their friends lovers and children fight for themselves and each other through tragic curious or surreal circumstances.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In The Wash when a woman's son is drowned by a dog in the Erie Canal she finds comfort in the most surprising place.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The novella Cold Storage set against the backdrop of campus Vietnam protests in 1971 portrays teenaged June as she leaves St. Barnabas Home for Unwed Mothers and considers returning to college but arrives home to find her parents divorcing and her mother unrecognizably ill.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In You Hear Night Sounds a college student inherits a pet turkey from his late father-the only one who ever heard his disturbing confession.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Though the village in </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Grand Scheme of Things</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is small what unravels has universal historic and lasting implications. These are stories of protest and growth of loss and surrender of acceptance and compromise.</span></p>