Table of Contents

The Hard Road
If "If's" and "But's" Were Candies and Nuts
The Healing Line
Bachelors
Gone the Hard Road
Spook
Noble
A Month of Sundays
Imposters
Bastards
Once upon a Time
My Lost Year
Mischief Afoot
Go

About the Author

Lee Martin is the author of many novels, including The Bright Forever, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He is also author of Yours, Jean; The Mutual UFO Network; and Late One Night, among others. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper's, Creative Nonfiction, and The Best American Essays. Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, the 2006 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, Martin teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University, where he is a College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.

Reviews

An award-winning fiction writer, essayist, and memoirist, Martin (b. 1955) creates an affecting portrait of his troubled childhood in a small Illinois farming town. . . . Martin's hard road involved recognizing his emotional legacy: inheriting from his father a constant feeling of wariness against forces that were "waiting to hurt me" and from his mother, a desire to believe in a God who will keep him "safe and free from harm." (Kirkus Reviews) Gone the Hard Road is a follow-up to his first memoir, told in thirteen connected essays. It focuses on his mother, a compassionate woman, who, in spite of her family's hardships, remains positive and optimistic. . . . In Gone the Hard Road, Martin tells his story of growing up in rural Illinois with great passion, love, and undying hope. - Debbie Hagan (Brevity)