An utterly original and compelling novel from “one of our living masters (McSweeney's), originally published in 1998 and now re-issued by Grove with a new introduction—a conversation between the author and Daniel Handler.Paul Emmons has his faults—envy, lust, naiveté, money laundering, and art forgery to name but a few. A fallen accountant and scamster, Emmons and wife Mary are exiled abroad, though they enjoy frequent and inadvisable returns to New England, the region of his crimes, to check in on the property they own but cannot claim.With this, the stage is set for Drury's darkly comic novel of love, death, guilt, redemption, and the various forms of clam chowder. Through a series of flashbacks and bizarre encounters, we see Paul's life as a college student in Quebec; his unfortunate professional beginnings in Rhode Island as business associate of Carlo Record, the one-armed president of the fraudulent company "New England...

The new novel from the award-winning author of The End of Vandalism is a wry and sophisticated heist drama. Set in the rugged region of the Midwest that gives the novel its title, The Driftless Area is the story of Pierre Hunter, a young bartender with unfailing optimism, a fondness for coin tricks, and an uncanny capacity for finding trouble. When he falls in love, with the mysterious and isolated Stella Rosmarin, Pierre becomes the central player in a revenge drama he must unravel and bring to its shocking conclusion. Along the way he will liberate $77,000 from a murderous thief, summon the resources that have eluded him all his life, and come to question the very meaning of chance and mortality. For nothing is as it seems in The Driftless Area. Identities shift, violent secrets lie in wait, the future can cause the past, and love becomes a mission that can take you beyond this world. In its tender, cool irony, The Driftless Area recalls the best of...

“Drury is a truly great writer.”—Esquire“A beguiling novel . . . perceptive and captivating.”—The New York Times“Startling and utterly original.”—Newsday In this mesmerizing novel, Tom Drury once again journeys to the quiet Midwest to spend an action-packed October weekend in the lives of a precarious family whose members all want something without knowing how to get it: for Charles, an heirloom shotgun; for his wife, Joan, the imaginative life she once knew; for their young son, Micah, a knowledge of the scope and reliability of his world, aided by prowling the empty town at night; and for Joan’s daughter, Lyris, a stable foot from which to begin to grow up.Sometimes together, sometimes crucially apart, father, mother, son, and daughter move through a series of vivid encounters that demonstrate how even the most provisional family can endure in its own particular way.

Welcome to Grouse County, somewhere in the Midwest, where the towns are small but the people, their dreams and their eccentricities come in all sizes. When Sheriff Dan Norman arrests local troublemaker Tiny Darling for vandalising an anti-vandalism dance, he does not expect much in the way of fallout. But unseen wheels have been set in motion, and lives will be changed: Dan finds love, Tiny loses his wife Louise, and all three travel an epic journey of the heart. The End of Vandalism is full of small miracles of observation, compassion and humour, held together by the 'electric deadpan' of Drury's celebrated style. For readers willing to tune in, the experience will be a revelation.