What Barry Wanted and Other Stories

<p>In "What Barry Wanted and Other Stories," the lives of four different men turn directions by events that are equally ordinary and unexpected. In the title story, twenty-five- year-old Barry Littleton sorts his directionless life amid the disruptions of small-town rivalries, his mother's steely Protestant faith, his traveling father's loosened morals and his Navajo friend, Orlando. "Structure of Things" follows a real estate agent, Edmund Wilson, to Santa Barbara as he sets his hopes and identity on understanding his ever-dreaming older sister, Ann. At a race track in "Small Vices," the power of a white lie grants a young man a much desired proximity to his buddy's girlfriend. The final story, "Reno," finds the predictable relationships between four friends changed by an impending wedding, a freak accident and a dead-end sales job.</p>