A collection of twelve stories, featuring a set of characters sketched quikly but masterfully. The setting consist in the towns and populations in the Mississippi river basin. The stories are full of surprises and types that are reminiscent of those of Flannery O'Connor. The background is a Christian vision of life, which looks with mercy at the vicissitudes of human beings, sometimes hard, sometimes very hard; and other times, kind, strange or mistaken because of a wrongly used freedom…. They are characters who seek to be happy, sometimes on the right paths and sometimes on the wrong ones, but Tim Gautreaux's gaze does not remain on the surface. He delves tenderly and with a certain good humour into the depths of each character and brings it to light in a very careful, smooth and beautiful text, as the immense landscapes of these lands must be. And in each story the reader comes out somehow transformed, with a desire to be better.
J.I.P. (Spain, 2018)