Trajectory: Stories

The characters in these four expansive stories are a departure from the blue-collar denizens that populate so many of Richard Russo´s novels; and all are bound together by parallel moments of reckoning with their pasts. In "Horseman," a young professor confronts an undergraduate plagiarist--as well as her own regrets. In "Intervention," a realtor facing a serious medical prognosis finds himself in his late father´s shadow. "Voice" gives us a semiretired academic who is conned by his estranged brother into joining a group tour of the Venice Biennale. And "Milton and Marcus" takes us into a lapsed novelist´s attempt to rekindle his screenwriting career--a career that depends wholly, at a crucial moment, on two Hollywood icons (one living, one dead). Shot through with Russo´s inimitable humor, wisdom, and surprise, Trajectory is the work of a masterful writer continuing to discover new heights.