Discovering the World

"Thomas Jeffrey Vasseur steeps us in a disappearing rural South, the New South, and the world at large. Here is true narrative variety: a little boy discovers the wonder and allure of flight; a ballet dancer from Texas falls in love; a Kentucky choir minister adopts a troublesome son; a German woman transplanted to the Deep South finally grasps the emotional needs of her teenage daughter. These tales of passion are full of peril, a recurrent awareness of mortality, the gaps that separate all people and threaten to separate them further from those they love." "The landscape may be a church in Kentucky, the battlefields of Southeast Asia, the Oregon coast or an airplane in flight. But all of these stories are linked by the theme of self-discovery and the awareness of others, culminating with the title novella where a Southern native meets a Vietnam Veteran who takes him to French Polynesia then an island in Fiji to repair a hurricane-damaged sailboat. This debut collection devotes itself to sense of place, both personal and collective history, some lyrical and some hard truths about the regions and locales that inspired it." "Ultimately, the novella looks closely at our country's ongoing attitudes toward race, class, spirituality, our globe's endangered natural environment, the aftermath of the Vietnam war and 1960s as a whole. In its variety of modes and themes - city versus country life, sexual desire and parenthood, our very American pursuit of earthly happiness and our resilient faith in God, Discovering the World: Thirteen Stories is a collection that probes the nooks and crannies of the human heart."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved