Written with boundless intelligence and razor-sharp wit, The Facades is a comic andexistential mystery that unfolds at the urgent pace of a thriller.

In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill--a loveless...

"Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is 'cruising along at medium altitude' when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals--from Rune, a twinkling, pipe-smoking,...

"Zenith is the finest example of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere." Zenith is the Midwestern city where George F. Babbitt lives and works. A successful real estate agent, his business provides all the material trappings and comfort he thinks he ought to have. He is a member of all the right clubs, and unquestioningly shares the same aspirations and ideas as his friends and fellow Boosters. Yet even complacent, conformist Babbitt dreams...

"For the centennial of its original publication, an irresistible Graphic Deluxe Edition of one of the most beloved books of the 20th century Perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English language, James Joyce's Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of "dear dirty Dublin" at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as "Araby," "Grace," and "The Dead," delve into the heart of the...

The last of a manufacturing dynasty in a dying industrial town, Bill lives alone in the family mansion and works for the Truth, the moribund local paper. He yearns to write long philosophical pieces about the American dream gone sour, not the flaccid write-ups of bake-off contests demanded by the Truth. Then, old man Lawton goes missing, and suspicion fixes on his son, Ronny. Paradoxically, the specter of violent death breathes new

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Recounts the belated coming of age of Robert Cigar who, at age twenty-seven, has retired from sports writing and moved into the household of his recently deceased friend and former professor.

"The Triumph of the Egg, Sherwood Anderson's 1921 collection of poems and short stories, focuses on the alienating and disruptive moments of American small-town life. Similar in tone to its more famous sibling-Winesburg, Ohio-Triumph focuses on the driving issues of the early 20th c. Midwest: modernization, increasing industrialization, the growth of big business, and the Great Migration"--Amazon.com. "'The Triumph of the Egg' is a short story collection...

This novel is about how the artistic soul is sacrificed on the altar of big business. Except in this case the artist willingly makes the sacrifice and has no regrets afterward. Thus, the novel can't be counted a tragedy. John Sheridan lives by one mantra: Bigger is better. He owns the Sheridan Pump Works and is determined to make it an industrial giant. He brings his two oldest sons into the business only to see them fail. His youngest son, Bibbs,...

"This heartwarming, feel-good holiday romance brings together a loveable cast of characters who find hope where they thought it had been lost and romance where no one ever expected it. Returning home to her family's farm in the Midwest for her Christmas wedding was never Beth Dean's plan. But it's the only way her beloved grandmother will be able to attend. And even her New York City friends will find the family's old barn elegant. But when her fiance's...