Same Place, Same Things

by Tim Gautreaux

In this collection of stories, Tim Gautreaux chronicles the lives of "ordinary" people who face extraordinary circumstances and decisions: a farmer faced with the prospect of raising his infant granddaughter; a young man who falls in love with a voice on the radio; a train engineer who causes a colossal disaster. In stories filled with heart and humor, event and consequence, the customs and culture of Louisiana come to life in the hands of a writer who blends rare talent with an even more unusual humanity.

Same place, same things --
Waiting for the evening news --
Died and gone to Vegas --
The courtship of Merlin LeBlanc --
Navigators of thought --
People on the empty road --
The bug man --
Little frogs in a ditch --
License to steal --
Floyd's girl --
Returnings --
Deputy Sid's gift

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Southern, Literary Fiction, American Fiction, Contemporary, Literature

211 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Timothy Martin Gautreaux (born 1947 in Morgan City, Louisiana) is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Hammond, Louisiana, where he is Writer in Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University.
His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Atlantic, Harper's, and GQ. His novel The Next Step in the Dance won the 1999 SEBA Book Award. His novel The Clearing won the 1999 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance SIBA Book Award and the 2003 Mid-South Independent Booksellers Association Award. He also won the 2005 John Dos Passos Prize.
Gautreaux also authored Same Place, Same Things and Welding with Children—collections of short stories. His 2009 novel The Missing was described as his "best yet" by New Orleans Times-Picayune book editor Susan Larson in a featured article.
Gautreaux notes that his family’s blue-collar background has been a significant influence on his writing. His father was a tugboat captain, and his grandfather was a steamboat engineer. Given those influences, he says, “I pride myself in writing a ‘broad-spectrum’ fiction, fiction that appeals to both intellectuals and blue-collar types. Many times I’ve heard stories of people who don’t read short stories, or people who have technical jobs, who like my fiction.”
In addition, Gautreaux has made clear that he is not interested in being classified as a "Southern writer," preferring instead to say that he is a "writer who happens to live in the South." He is much more comfortable embracing his Roman Catholicism, saying, "I've always been a Roman Catholic, since baptism, since birth."

Reviews

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't keep up on literary trends much, but it seems to me that there was a minor movement a few years ago that I thought of as 'gritty regionalism'--authors like Donald Ray Pollack (Knockemstiff), Daniel Woodrell (Winter's Bone), William Gay I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories, and Frank Bill (Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories), among others, were focused on either the south or the Midwest, were often very stark and brutal, and were mostly unpleasant, though no doubt were exploiting some of the realities of the times. I had associated Tim Gautreaux with that group, partly because of the time his books were coming out, and partly because I knew they were centered around a specific place--in this case southern Louisiana, specifically the land around "Grand Crapaud", a fictionalized area I'd put somewhere to the north of New Orleans and west of Baton Rouge, though I'm not familiar enough with Louisiana to pinpoint it any further. Suffice it to say that it's an area with a long history and its own customs. Sometimes its own language.

It might be splitting hairs, but after reading, I wouldn't put Gatreaux in that group of 'gritty regionalists' any more, mainly because his stories are not as bleak, brutal and depressing as those others. Gatreaux's stories have their moments, but the critical difference is that whereas those other fellows often seem to be describing communities that have decayed so badly there is nothing left other than animal anarchy, Gatreaux's stories seem to indicate a kind of continuity: life can be very difficult in this terrain, but it will go on.

Single author collections of short-stories are almost by definition going to be a mixture of hits and misses--to try and take some of the pressure off, I try to put a little time between reading each story. Part of the problem is that while the initial stories might be new and interesting, too much familiarization with the author's style is going to dull the effectiveness of the later tales. So I read one story a day, and I think it increase my enjoyment of this collection quite a bit. There are no complete 'misses' in Same Place, Same Things though there are a few that are more memorable than others. I especially liked the title story--a roving mechanic comes to southern Louisiana during the depression years to work on water pumps during a drought and finds a woman who's ready to do almost anything to get away from the 'same places, same things'.

At Gatreaux's best, I thought he reminded me a little bit of Raymond Carver--very spare plots that weave themselves around a small incident that somehow illuminates a character far better than any direct attack. Other times he seemed like a jovial raconteur, which was also enjoyable. And there's no doubt he knows his setting--my experiences in Louisiana have been rather limited, but for what it's worth, Gatreaux seems to have nailed it. I think the more one knew about the area, the more one would appreciate Gatreaux's treatment of it.

3.5 stars--well worth a look

[Mike Rumley-Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading short stories, except...most contemporary short stories are nihilistic, depressing and pointless. That's a good generalization, huh? Tim Gautreaux, on the other hand, writes meaningful, hopeful, poignant stories, even though they are often about sad and wounded people. Most of these stories are set in Louisiana with its special flavors and textures.

[Pablo Sotomayor · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Me encantó este libro! No tenía muchas espectativas, simplemente quería leer algo para desconectar de lo habitual... y lo logró.
Reúne una serie de cuentos del autor que equilibran muy bien la descripción que no se hace pesada, personajes muy bien retratados, historias del día a día que siempre tienen su sorpresa, e incluso enseñanzas que el autor no pretende dar, pero el lector puede encontrar.
Me reí mucho y me enternecí también. Al acabar cada relato me sentía con la necesidad de detenerme y pensar un poco lo que había sucedido. Me incomoda la idea de seguir leyendo otro sin haberle dado su tiempo a los personajes que acaban de ser protagonistas.
¡De lo mejor de mi año!

[Peacejanz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where has Tim Gautreaux been all my life? This is my first book by this author, based on a recommendation of someone on Goodreads. I loved this book. It is a book of short stories and they are all about the south - he is from Louisiana and has published his short stories in many places. I may have read a story by him in Atlantic or Harpers or some other magazine, but this is the first book for me. His writing is crisp, authentic, never a wasted word. His descriptions are strikingly realistic.
His dialogue is particularly accurate - I am from the South and know some of the people he writes about. He writes about dumb things people do, smart things they do, their love, their pain, the messes they get into. I loved reading this. If you want to smile - get this book or anything by this author. His writing is never meanspirited or cruel - just funny. The sad thing is that many of the people he writes about are my relatives. Oh, well, I did not choose them. I choose Tim.

[Brad Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a short story collection that is not depressing! Great tales that give me a window into a time place and people I know little about.

[Danielle's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic story! I had a feeling that something was amiss the entire time I was reading this. There was a good bit of foreshadowing that had me predicting what was going on. The writing was also great. The imagery was very descriptive and I was able to clearly imagine the story in my mind.

[Bárbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,7. En algunos relatos se le notan demasiado las costuras.

[Jesus M. Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicioso. Una franca sorpresa. Historias entrañables y muy entretenidas escritas con un estilo limpio, directo, simple. Personajes plenos, redondos, con los que el lector se encariña desde el primer momento. Fino humor sobre un manto de optimismo: si todos fuéramos como los protagonistas de estos relatos, el mundo sería más honesto, menos hostil. En esto, el sureño Gautreaux se diferencia de Flannery O’Connor. Autor a seguir, aunque no se han traducido sus obras al español, creo.

[FrankH · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm going to tell you about the last time I went to confession" begins Bobby Simoneaux of Grand Crapaud, Louisiana, former Cajun roustabout turned geriatric care assistant, eager to get something off his chest.

Simoneaux figures in 'Deputy Sid's Gift', the last story in this 1996 collection by Tim Gautreaux, and like most of the tales here, it starts off squarely focused on its subject but hinting at a multitude of potentialities. If there's a confession, might there also be a sin, say an adulterous affair or perhaps a theft? Can the priest in the confessional offer spiritual guidance or does the penitent have a different, more profane agenda?

As the story progresses and we find Bobby and a hulking but patient parish cop named Sid struggling, comically, with issues of conscience and common sense, the extraneous potentialities fall away and story magically shapes itself along the lines it now seemed to have intended right at inception. It's the reader that gets 20-20 hindsight/insight at the conclusion: all along this has been a tale not solely about doing right but about the trying task of doing right for the right reasons. That such deontological parsing should proceed inexorably from the repeated theft of Simoneaux's 1962 junkyard Chevy pick-up truck by a backwater bayou drunkard named Fernest Bezue represents just half of the tale's crazy charm.

And where's the author in all this? That's the rest of the charm: he's a self-effaced MIA and has left behind no florid description or over-reaching diction to expose what might have been the intrusive literary footprint. Like all the imaginative stories in this volume, 'Deputy Sid's Gift' motors along to the precise logic of character and motivation applied to an inspired premise, one idea flowing effortlessly into the next, so rich and good it practically tells itself.

The Tugboat Dad

Twelve stories comprise 'Same Place, Same Things' and its tone ranges from the sinister -- a traveling well-pump repair man suspects foul play from an attentive female customer (the titled story) -- to the uproariously funny -- members of an informal liar's club (ala Mary Karr) sit down on board a government river dredge to play bourre, then sidle into the telling of some very tall tales, each one more zany and outrageous than the one before it ('Died and Gone to Vegas'). Mostly, though, these are narratives of simple working-class men and women, Louisiana Cajuns, who either succumb to a combination of weakness and bad karma or rise up to grasp the small but sustaining epiphanies they find in the challenges of daily life.

Gautreaux, an Acadian himself, rejects characterizations of his work as 'Southern', 'regional' or even 'Cajun'. Still, it's hard not to think his craft hasn't been advanced by a tangy, flavor-laden sub-culture that knows its own and places great value on storytelling. This is, after all, Louisiana where AM radio plays 'Sunshine Cain't Ruin My Storm' by Zydeco Clinton Rideau and the Ebony Crawfish ('Deputy Sid's Gift') and where loving grand-meres evince a pride of heritage -- "Them tree...Thiboudeaux boys cleared all that...live oak and cypress...with axes...two hundred acres" ('Floyd's Girl').

For his part, Gautreaux's own family and forebears come from a stock of mostly railroad men and river rats (his dad was a tugboat captain on the Mississippi) who liked to talk and be heard. His love of tinkering with machines and appreciation for the well-made tool, he says, can be traced to these solid focused men who understood the value of their labor. Musing on the origins of his stories in a 1993 interview with 'Southern Scribe', Gautreaux states:

One thing that makes a child turn into a writer(is)the ability to understand the importance of remembering everything. And to remember you have to listen and believe that everything you hear is interesting.....The thing about a properly designed mechanism is that there are no non-functioning parts. Everything has a purpose, every bit and tag, every screw and eyelet. Good fiction's the same way.

No surprise then this volume is a product of careful memory, exacting technique and a great faith in the values, even wisdom, of everyday people. There's one more thing, though, Gautreaux can draw from: his uncanny ability to bind unlike, sometimes jarring elements into a story conceit -- call it a narrative alloy -- that displays a unique sentiment and tonality all its own. My favorite two stories in the bunch begin respectively with a tradesman and a former model followed by the farmer's wife, not his daughter, and a still very green military man.



The author, Tim Gautreaux



Slugs and the Beauty Queen

In 'The Bug Man', a retiring home pest exterminator Felix Robichaux, wearied by spraying nests of German roaches in the dirty homes of slovenly, no-class renters like 'The Slugs', graciously decides to play matchmaker, pairing an upscale but depressed widow customer he calls 'The Beauty Queen' with another customer, a handsome unmarried male attorney new to her neighborhood. At first the couple hit it off, but when Felix learns the relationship has soured and the 'Queen' is pregnant and thinking of abortion, he makes the suggestion that he and his wife Clarisse, painfully childless for years, take the newborn when it arrives and become its foster parents. The offended woman angrily fires him and rejects his offer. We know her reason: the lives of a bug man and a beauty queen were never meant to entwine. Years later, though, fate decrees that Felix, now a prosperous businessman, should again come to the door of his Queen and suffer an even more hurtful rejection, filling him briefly with just one, and only one, bittersweet thought of what might have been:

At once, he felt shriveled and sick, like a sprayed insect...but the Bug Man was now a veteran of missed connections and could tell when the train had left the station without him....He allowed himself this one glance. One glance, he thought, was what he could have

Wet Clothes on the Line and the Empty Driveway

Set in the 1960s, 'Returnings' opens with a farmer's wife, Elaine, seemingly absorbed by the task of starting a balky tractor but on the inside still grieving over the recent death by encephalitis of her teenage son. Suddenly, swooping down onto her field is a military copter. A short man of Asian descent climbs out of the cockpit and approaches Elaine. He's a lost American Corp man who can't find his way back to the military base. Calling the installation is not an option: his commander at the base doesn't like him and will at the first sign of trouble bounce him out of the Air Corp to fight, with a faulty weapon, as infantry man in Viet Nam. Can she help him get back to camp on time?

Elaine can't decode the young man's military map, so she climbs into the cabin, ready to show him the way in flight. Up in the air, though, she finds no recognizable landmarks. She then turns to the young man and commands him to land the copter again but only in a field next to a house where there's laundry drying on the clothesline and no pickup truck parked in the driveway. Come again?

If you understand the point of Elaine's requirements, you will also grasp the clever logic in Gautreaux's plotting that gets us to his final point: maternal love, particularly shared maternal love, saves the lives of young sons, bridges ethnic divides and can even curtail the pangs of grief.

The Mindset of a Screw-up

A few stories in the collection manifest as studies of how people's lives come apart, with no redemption as epilogue. They're not exactly sympathetic portraits but Gautreaux never quite allows his characters to be objects of ridicule or cultural commentary. What interests the writer more appears to be the personal psychology that paves the way for the screw-up.

'Navigators of Thought' posits a group of failed over-educated academics hired by a wannabe professor named Bert to run a Mississippi river tug. Deck hand Thomas Mann Hartford, engineer Max, a Nietzsche scholar, the John Donne specialist Claude and the others worry about unfinished dissertations and resume drops that can't spark interest even from out-of-the-way community colleges. For those reasons, none of them can keep their minds on the tug job long enough to avoid equipment destruction, even the loss of the boat itself. "Sometime, I think we think too much", says Bert. "Thought is life", replies Max. "We're navigators of thought'.

Words from the Canasta Dragon

In 'Waiting for the Evening News', an inebriated railroad engineer, Jesse McNeil, 'known intimately only by his menopausal wife and the finance company', wants to celebrate his 50th birthday by forgetting the nagging DIY demands of his partner Lurleen and doing 'something wild and wooly'. He's charging along at 50 mph on his usual main line run, carrying a long chain of tankers and box cars filled with poisonous gases and chemical compounds. Suddenly, wrenches and lunch boxes begin to fly around in the cabin and looking backwards he sees his train cars derailing, noxious explosions and clouds of gases. Once the lead locomotives are braked and fearing the worst, he flees the scene, books himself into a room at the 'Night of Delight' motel, flips on a TV news broadcast and finds he's a wanted man.

The train accident turns out to be a whopping environmental disaster; images from the news broadcasts show green smoke rising from flipped tankers, towns evacuated, vinyl chloride and paint stripper running in the town ditches, 10,000 hens killed on the chicken farm, a 7-11 burned to the ground. But he's not ready to turn himself in. Though frightened by the condemnations he imagines will come his way -- 'I'll be right up there with Charles Mansion' -- McNeil keeps returning to the saving idea that perhaps his drinking had nothing to do with the bad thing that happened. It offers little comfort because following all those images of civic disaster comes something more horrific for Jesse: a TV interview with the better half at their less than cinematic family home.

And there was Lurleen, sitting on the sofa, in front of the big picture of the ocean surf, talking to the reporter about her husband. What could be worse than being introduced to the English speaking world by Lurleen McNeil, a chain-smoking canasta dragon, whose biggest ambition in life was to have everything they owned painted in sea-foam green...'I don't mean to say he's a bad man,...but he tends to drink too much, if you know what I mean' (says Lurleen live on camera).....'And who the hell wouldn't take a drink if they were married to a slave-driving snapping turtle' (yells back Jesse, watching in the motel room)...'I just wish he could put all this behind him to come home and help paint the living room' (says Lurleen).

Good thing Jesse had already set aside a part of his recent paycheck so the wife could pay her no-account cousin to come over with the brushes and rollers!

Take a Breather

I can't say enough about this collection but, per usual, have probably already said too much. If you want a break from the ponderous novel and fragmented narrative, pay a visit to these denizens of Southeast Louisiana, Gautreaux's world, where it's all about straight-ahead storytelling and the surprises you can find in life if you just pay attention.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Gautreaux offers fine tuned and funny short stories in his book, SAME PLACE, SAME THINGS. Louisiana is a favorite place of ours since New Orleans always offers us a great time: food, music, and all kinds of people. These stories focus on the people and action outside of the Big Easy and to be honest I don't want to go there. Nice to listen to if you have someone who enjoys reading out loud.

[Jason Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of stories set in contemporary Louisiana about blue collar working folks. Written in the same "Grit Lit" or "Rough South" tradition of Larry Brown and Tom Franklin, two of my favorite Southern writers.

[Emma Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read it for school- really wasn’t a fan.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of short stories illustrating the variety of people living in rural Louisiana. Although not very likable, most of the main characters are memorable. Highly recommend

[Capítulo IV]

"Gautreaux demuestra en este libro su profundo conocimiento de la realidad, su sensibilidad para captarla y su destreza para expresarla en una prosa brillante y adictiva a la par que sencilla y salpicada de un inteligentísimo humor. No es cuestión baladí que según la crítica estemos ante el cartógrafo del Sur de Estados Unidos". Más en https://capitulocuarto.com/2018/06/27...

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific book of stories which sparks the desire to read more of Tim Gautreaux

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this collection of stories. As a group, they took me inside rural Lousiana's blue collar population (mostly Cajun in these stories) effectively. Most of the characters are hardscrabble, but their lives do not depress them because they are secure in a culture which brings people together in a sense of community. The fierce loyalty of family (multi-generationally) and friends comes through in many of the stories. Most of the characters have probably not been out of their county, and certainly few have been outside Louisiana. Texas in one story seems to be regarded as another country. People make do with very little, support each other and live in simple patterns.

I also like the fact that these stories are generally fairly substantial. The shortest ones are eleven or twelve pages, and the longest just over twenty. This means there is room for narrative. I did not especially like the fact that too many ended either with a twist or a vague state in which things have not been resolved.

Gautreaux is a skilled creator of dialog. The reader gets a sense of place in how the people in the stories talk. Descriptions of the generally bleak landscape are also effective. The unfortunate impact is that I could never want to visit this part of the world, but the story characters are for the most part content to live where they do and as they do.

Other reviewers have discerned a sense of hope and optimism in at least some of the stories. I just can't there, except in the basic sense that for the most part the characters will survive. Most of the stories end either painfully or with a character just wandering off into the larger world beyond this bleak county. Many of the characters are alcoholics, and several others simply are not very likable (especially Lenny in "Little Frogs in a Ditch," which is also the story which stays in my mind most clearly). There is very little humor in these tales, which does not help. On the whole, I found this a fairly depressing collection of lives and stories, though there are exceptions. That probably suggests I just don't get it, since I would expect this is not at all what Gautreaux would want his readers to take away from having read the book.

[Georgina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo cierto es que la obra me ha parecido algo flojilla. Aunque el tono es simpático y algunas de las escenas desternillantes, no todos los relatos tienen el mismo gancho. Eso sí, Gautreaux retrata maravillosamente a personajes sencillos, gente corriente con problemas de lo más variados, que deben tomar decisiones —extraordinarias o no, de esas que a veces plantea la vida— en la Luisiana cajún, donde los lazos de sangre y la religión son los dos ejes que vertebran la sociedad. Algunas escenas recurrentes: la chatarra que se acumula en el patio trasero de las casas, los desencuentros que se resuelven en torno a una lata de cerveza fría, los consejos de un bisabuelo curtido por la vida. El libro es entretenido, pero se encuentra a años luz de “El siguiente paso en el baile” (tengo la reseña pendiente).

[Erin Bottger (Bouma) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never physically been to the state of Louisiana, but through this book, I feel as if I know the place. Gautreaux's snapshot stories gives us a open window on a mixed society full of ordinary folks, drunks, priests, wayward women, former academics, farm wives, scam artists, exterminators, backwoods Cajuns, Blacks, Good 'Ole Boys, and even a Vietnamese pilot.

These stories are intimate in that they revolve around a few people interacting in everyday and extraordinary circumstances. Moral struggles play out on farms, highways, small towns, planes, rivers, backyards, and country lanes. Gautreaux captures lives through observation, dilemmas, and dialogue men and women wrestling with dreams, fear, guilt, love and loss, life and death.

[Robert Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slices of lives cut thick and slathered with jelly. This book gives a lovely flavour of what it's like to be living in Louisiana. The people are often bitter and twisted, sometime wise and seldom happy but they all have something to share about life and how it works. Read this book if you want to see into your own heart. We are all from Louisiana.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was worth the wait. I'd ready another book by Gautreaux and had this on my list a long time. Both capture the landscape, language and flavor of his region, and I enjoy books that take me to new places. The stories here all have some pretty rough and flawed characters. My favorite was the title story, which features a traveling pump repairman, following drought seasons from place to place. Very worth reading!

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slices of south Louisiana life, or a simulacra thereof, told with equal parts poignancy and humor. The concluding trio of stories ("Floyd's Girl," "Returnings," and "Deputy Sid's Gift") are especially good. Not all of these stories are home runs, but none of them strike out either. A very strong and enjoyable collection of tales.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some nice stories, others meh. I liked best the story of a grandfather dealing with the death of his daughter and facing the prospect of raising a granddaughter, and also dealing with his own father and grandfather as they critique him.

[Noel Brey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grandísimos relatos sobre gente corriente a quienes la ruptura de su cotidianidad les obliga a tomar decisiones que acaso les hundan más en ese vuelco que les da la vida. Historias profundas, humanas, desconcertantes… Magnífico cuentista.

[Ana RLQP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me parece muy buen escritor de relatos. Aunque este libro está bien, me gustó más ‘todo lo que vale’.

“Los buenos tiempos no le habían enseñado ni la milésima parte de lo que le habían enseñado los malos.”

[Paquita SanMartín · Rating 5 out of 5]

Primer libro de este cuentista que leo. Algunas historias me han interesado más que otras pero todas tienen un toque especial. Mi favorito ha sido Navegantes del pensamiento; el autor es capaz de describir una atmósfera, unos personajes con maestría y sabor cajún.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent collection of stories.

[Colin Brightwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories.

[Christie Maloyed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galutreaux's writing perfectly captures and elevates the spirit of South Louisiana. There are several tender and also laugh out loud moments.

[Lauren Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Women man... I cannot believe even before her husband died she was lusting after Harry. God bless Harry for being the bigger person and not giving into her desires.