Fire Road

by Donald Anderson

Stephen Mann -- loyal son, war veteran, divorced father -- is the subject of Donald Anderson's contemporary short-story cycle, Fire Road. In this award-winning collection, Mann negotiates life's punches through gain and loss, love and death, and the all too random dangers of being human.

We are first introduced to Stephen Mann as a teenager confronting the impending death of his eccentric grandfather. Images of drunken brawling, harsh winters, and a worn set of boxing gloves evoke a surprisingly intimate portrait of a grandfather's love. Mann proceeds to marry and divorce, move to the West, raise a troubled daughter, and have an affair or two. Woven between each personal story are poetic vignettes of isolated moments -- the headlines in a morning paper, a political murder -- and the century's most violent tragedies -- the bombing of Hiroshima, the firestorm at Dresden. Each vignette is a constant, powerful reminder of the human capacity to love and, ultimately, to destroy.

A bruising view of one man's tumultuous journey through life, Fire Road explores the small and large crimes we all commit in the name of love and fear, despair and longing.

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001