The Realm of Last Chances, Steve Yarbrough
The Realm of Last Chances, Steve Yarbrough
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The Realm of Last Chances

Author: Steve Yarbrough

Narrator: James Colby

Unabridged: 9 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/09/2014


Synopsis

In a captivating departure from the Deep South setting of his previous fiction, Southern writer Steve Yarbrough now gives us a richly nuanced portrait of a marriage being reinvented in a small town in the Northeast, in his most surprising and compelling novel yet. When Kristin Stevens loses her administrative job in California' s university system, she and her husband, Cal, relocate to Massachusetts. Kristin takes a position at a smaller, less prestigious college outside Boston and promptly becomes entangled in its delicate, overheated politics. Cal, whose musical talent is nothing more than a consuming avocation, spends his days alone, fixing up their new home. And as they settle into their early fifties, the two seem to exist in separate spheres entirely. At the same time, their younger neighbor Matt Drinnan watches his ex-wife take up with another man in his hometown, with only himself to blame. He and Kristin, both facing an acute sense of isolation, gravitate toward each other, at first in hope of a platonic confidant but then, inevitably, of something more. The Realm of Last Chances provides us with a subtle, moving exploration of relationships, loneliness and our convoluted attempts to reach out to one another.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Barbara on September 13, 2013

“He felt as if he’d stepped into the realm of last chances, where the ice is thin and apt to break and caution is no currency.” Yarbrough knows how to write a sentence. This is a story of characters who have looked defeat square in the eye, and are now just existing. Each of the main characters surv......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on August 11, 2013

Pardon the length--this review was written for a local paper that did not end up running it: William Faulkner famously said that he never needed to leave his “postage stamp of native soil” to write first-rate fiction. For Indianola native Steve Yarbrough, the native ground of Mississippi soil has ind......more