In The Way People Run, Christopher Tilghman is on his home terrain: the matters of the heart, our most difficult truths, and the quiet, rugged regions of the Chesapeake Bay and the American West. Compared by critics to Fitzgerald, Styron, and Faulkner, Tilghman works his subtle emotional magic on the rough and reflective characters in these six long stories. In the title story, a man goes west in search of a job offer, only to find his hold on his family slipping away in the process. In “Something Important,” Peter Ramsey reluctantly spends a weekend with an estranged older brother and discovers a dark truth about his life. And in “Things Left Undone,” a young couple struggles to survive a shattering tragedy. Life’s truths are at heart of these magnificent stories by a modern American master.
Reviews
“Individually, these stories are exemplary stories that stand on their own: carefully crafted, authoritative, and knowing. Read together, they create a powerhouse collection filled with intellect and insight.” Wendi Kaufman, The Washington Post Book World
“There is haunting, if harrowing, beauty, compassion, and wisdom throughout Tilghman’s fiction. This book is another treasure.” Susan Miron, The Miami Herald
“Tilghman’s world is a sensual, organic, and spiritual place in which men are interconnected with the family members from whom they run, and the American landscapes through which they run. . . . a strong collection that grants us access to the quiet, dignified, and gradual world of ‘private information.’” – Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe
“Christopher Tilghman is hopelessly out of step with the times. I mean that as a compliment. Tilghman persists in writing the kind of fiction we’re all supposedly too busy to read — unhurried, carefully observed, 100 percent gimmick-free stories steeped in an old-fashioned brew of local tradition, family history and natural landscape. Gary Krist, Salon