Thrift Store Coats

Brooks Rexroats Thrift Store Coats transports readers to the postindustrial Midwest and explores the lives of those living on its quiet edge. Interwoven with themes of love lineage poverty and survival the characters in these stories grapple with the idea of identity -- not only of where they fit into the world but of how their origins impact their place in the future.The collections titular story of focuses on a couples navigation of poverty after the recession leaves each of them suddenly unemployed. In Waiting Out the Apocalypse characters from all walks of life are forced into action by that which is out of their control: the decisions of local lawmakers and the devastating effects of a hurricanes landfall. Five Meals in Paris explores themes of solitude and circumstance by following a factory worker from Ohio as he fulfills his lifelong dream of traveling to Paris France.While Brooks Rexroats prose possesses the power to break the hearts of readers he establishes himself as a voice to be heard by masterfully repairing what has been broken -- with unflinching honesty and with a stunning sense of empathy.