Contagion

by Patrick M. Garry

Walt Honerman has just about given up on life. He is thirty-eight years old and lives alone in a small apartment above a hardware store in Billings, Montana. But because of a promise made to a dying uncle, Walt embarks on a cross-country driving trip with two passengers: Moira Kelly, a young woman who had befriended Walt's uncle during his recent hospitalization; and 76-year-old Izzy Dunleavy, a loquacious nursing home resident who wishes to return to his hometown of Crawfish Bay, Maryland. During their trip, Izzy entertains Walt and Moira with elaborate tales of the grand resort he once owned in Crawfish Bay-a resort with a mythical reputation for being a place of good luck. But when they arrive in Crawfish Bay, a suddenly confused Izzy is arrested on a decades-old embezzlement charge. After Moira insists on staying to help Izzy, she and Walt discover that most of Izzy's stories are pure fiction. More discoveries occur when they meet Felix, Izzy's former business partner, and Emily, a single mother who worked at the nursing home in Billings and who came to Crawfish Bay because of Izzy's promise of a job at his fictional resort. This mismatched group, thrown together as much by anger as by nostalgic affection, begins investigating the money Izzy supposedly embezzled when he disappeared from Crawfish Bay years ago. And despite his retreat from life, brought on by a past tragedy, Walt finds himself being pulled into the wake of wild dreamers.

272 pages, Paperback

First published May 25, 2007

About the author

From the time he began appreciating the great novels, Patrick Garry became intrigued with the imaginative artistry and insights of fiction. He wrote dozens of short stories before beginning his first novel, which took years to write. Since then, he has published seven more novels, and is currently working on a new novel about a disgraced lawyer who finds himself filling in at his sick father’s diner while defending a case that will unexpectedly end up on the front pages of the national newspapers.

The host of a national book review radio program has called Patrick Garry the best undiscovered writer in America. But Patrick Garry is unique in another respect. He writes about themes and ideas that are often absent in the works of contemporary American novelists.

Garry’s novels reaffirm life and the struggle of individuals to live their lives in ways that rise above mere materialism and the stranglehold of destructive temptations. In A Bridge Back, he writes about characters who never quite lose their desire for redemption, no matter how much guilt they feel for the mistakes of the past. Indeed, as the main character in A Bridge Back discovers, the past, no matter how tragic, is not to be feared. Confronting the past can lead to a discovery of truth, which can then lead to the only true freedom. And once the enslavement to fear is ended, a rediscovery of love becomes possible.

In A Bomb Shelter Romance, Garry portrays America as a place that continually changes—and in doing so, continually offers new opportunities for individuals to find what they have always sought to find. This story, of a family ridiculed as it builds the last bomb shelter of the Cold War, reveals how humor and joy can triumph over even the most sudden and traumatic tragedies. The O’Neals are a quintessential American family, if for no other reason than their ability to laugh at their often unenviable state. Yet, as the narrator acknowledges, sometimes you find love when you’re doing absolutely everything to discourage it.

The characters populating In the Shadow of War are nobly (and sometimes even irrationally) trying to make the best of a tough situation. They have been brought together by the narrator’s grandfather, an irrepressible dreamer who still hopes to turn the tiny little ghost town his ancestors once founded into a thriving community. According to the grandfather, the antidote to a past of disappointment is a more intense dream for the future. It is when he is surrounded by the dreams of his grandfather during the summer of his eighteenth year, when the narrator feels guilt ridden over the death of his mentally handicapped brother, that the narrator discovers the reality of love and the beauty of people who decide to let their dreams, rather than their disappointments, define them.

One of the themes Garry explores in his novels is the theme of moral relativism and the modern propensity to let political positions trump moral integrity. In The Price of Guilt, the main character learns in a very harsh way that political attitudes, no matter how publicly exalted, are no substitute for individual morality. In fact, a superficial pursuit of redemption through a seemingly noble outside goal ultimately sends the narrator to prison. The value of core moral beliefs is also reflected in Suicidal Tendencies, where the main character, in his reflexive opposition to anything traditional, discards the very morality that offers the only hope for saving him. Political positions and trendy cultural attitudes not only mask the character’s downfall, but actually end up leading him there.

Life can be simpler, and yet more heroic, than is often portrayed in the modern media, which instead can surround us by a confusion of all that can go wrong with life, rather than clarify for us what lies at the core of life—what defines it and makes it worth living. In Saving Faith, an orphan who spent his entire you