Elm Grove Publishing

MIKE LOWRIE​

Stephen King wrote: “A short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger.” Always popular, the short story has, in recent years once again come into its own.  In Texas Tall Short Stories, author Mike Lowrie introduces a wonderful array of diverse strangers. We meet Nigel Ledger in The Piano Tuner and brothers Rock and Runner in Good Deeds – as well as a host of other curious characters. And just as we begin getting to know them, they are gone – but not easily forgotten. This is the essence of the short story.  Sit back, relax and enjoy a kiss in the dark from each of these five Texas stories.

 

From the haunting sensitivity of The Piano Tuner, to the vivid raucousness of Texas Clam Bake, and the wild, sex-and-drugs fantasy of The Fishing Trip, Mike Lowrie takes the reader on a journey through a Texas many readers may not be familiar with. Gone are the cliché cowboys and tumbleweeds of routine Texas fiction from days gone by. Mike Lowrie’s Texas stories feature a wide and varied cast of characters and events, such as the day to day goings on in a major symphony orchestra in The Piano Tuner, or a strong independent woman taking care of herself – and others – in She’s No Barbie. Young African American boys are the heroes in Good Deeds. There’s even a lesbian biker gang in Texas Clam Bake. 

 

Drawing from his own experiences growing up in Texas, the author writes from the perspective of a different character in each story, capturing the essence of a different kind of Texas – and different kinds of Texan. 

 

The stories may be tall, but there is a wonderful ring of truth about all of them.