Barking Man: And Other Stories

Barking Man: And Other Stories

<DIV><DIV><b>Ten tales of misfits in big cities and lonely backwaters, striving to free themselves from traps of their own making</b></div><DIV> </div><DIV>In each of Bell’s ten stories, characters struggle through trying times, captives of their own bad decisions or plain bad luck. In “Black and Tan,” a farmer’s fortitude after the tragic death of his family leads him to become a savior of delinquent boys. The title story charts a London student’s crumbling psyche. And in “Petit Cachou” hustlers and panhandlers in the French Riviera experience the darker side of life on a seemingly perfect stretch of the Mediterranean coastline. While depicting characters both sympathetic and hopeless, Bell’s remarkable insight makes for a vivid rendering of civilization’s many frayed edges.</div><DIV> </div><DIV><i>Barking Man</i> is the author’s second collection of stories, and presents Bell’s writing at its most unforgettable.</div></div>