The Purchase of Order

by Gail Galloway Adams

Overview

In the cadence of a Texas drawl or the whisper of a midday kiss, these stories by Gail Galloway Adams capture untidy lives in which the pain of living is confounded with a grin. From the yoga instructor with her Earthshoes and mantras to the Texas aunt who wills herself insane, the characters in Adams's stories boldly face the sorrows and strains of everyday life, seeking relief in humor and redemption in words. The Purchase of Order depicts characters from Germany to Georgia, men and women attempting to find meaning within memory, who take joy in giving of themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820317342
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	06/01/1995
Series:	Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction Series , #59
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.45(d)

About the Author

GAIL GALLOWAY ADAMS is the author of The Purchase of Order, which received the 1987 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She is a professor emeritus at West Virginia University, where she taught creative writing for over twenty years. Adams served as fiction editor for Arts and Letters: A Literary Journal and for the Potomac Review. She has been a reader/judge for several short fiction awards series. She has recently taught at Kenyon College, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and the Wild Acres Writers Workshop. She also works privately as a short story and novel editorial consultant and lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Editorial Reviews

A deeply felt, solidly written book.

Chicago Tribune

If there is a heaven, I'm sure Flannery O'Connor is in it, and if she's looking down on Gail Galloway Adams right now, I'm sure she's pleased.

Washington Post - Susan Wood

Adams possesses the ability to convey the poignancy and drama found even in everyday things. . . . Each story is told with an enthralling mixture of sadness and wit.

Southern Living

A deeply felt, solidly written book.

Chicago Tribune

"If there is a heaven, I'm sure Flannery O'Connor is in it, and if she's looking down on Gail Galloway Adams right now, I'm sure she's pleased."—Susan Wood, Washington Post

"Adams possesses the ability to convey the poignancy and drama found even in everyday things. . . . Each story is told with an enthralling mixture of sadness and wit."—Southern Living

"A deeply felt, solidly written book."—Chicago Tribune

"Ranging widely over the lives of authentic men and women and their idiosyncracies, these tales are impressive models of the storytelling art."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

The most recent winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, this collection is redolent with regional flavor. In the title story, we meet the Maxeys, a Southern couple who have come a long way from the hardscrabble early days of their marriageraising children in a trailer court, finding a friend in a goodnatured, somewhat slatternly neighbor who enjoyed the labor of raking a dirt yard. Now, better off, settled into a middle-class existence, they travel the country in their RV with no fixed destination, only a longing to meet up with the old friend they moved up and away from. ``Marva Jean Howard Confesses'' introduces a likable, fast-talking waitress who confesses she ``murdered'' a cow, and in the process of telling wins the amorous admiration of her law officer listener; ``he'd fallen in love with the way she emptied ketchup bottles.'' ``Inside Dope'' is an unusual love story, featuring a know-everything womanizer, Billy Lee Boaz,``only he's called Bisher,'' says an adoring little ex-sister-in-law. Ranging widely over the lives of authentic men and women and their idiosyncrasies, these 11 tales are impressive models of the storytelling art. (October)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"If there is a heaven, I'm sure Flannery O'Connor is in it, and if she's looking down on Gail Galloway-Adams right now, I'm sure she's please." -- Washington Post

Steven Worth