What Barry Wanted and Other Stories

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.