The Way People Run

This superb new collection of stories confirms Tilghman's genius in that edgy territory of family, marriage breakdown, widowhood, parents, children, inheritance and escape, all against a backdrop of richly evoked landscapes from Virginia to Montana. Like Richard Ford, Tilghman unpeals the corner of the male psyche to expose, with empathy and yet a touch of ironic distance, the vulnerabilities which make men run, or lie - or even come back for good. Here are ordinary people - men, for the most part - running from their loves, looking for new hope in a 'bushel of crabs', a cattle ranch, a one-night stand or a whisky glass. But here, too, in these sharply focused and beautifully judged stories are moments of redemption, moments when they stop running and find love, or just a glimmer of self-knowledge.