The author of The Clearing (“the finest American novel in a long, long time”—Annie Proulx) now surpasses himself with a story whose range and cast of characters is even broader, with the fate of a stolen child looming throughout. Sam Simoneaux’s troopship docked in France just as World War I came to an end. Still, what he saw of the devastation there sent him back to New Orleans eager for a normal life and a job as a floorwalker in the city’s biggest department store, and to start anew with his wife years after losing a son to illness. But when a little girl disappears from the store on his shift, he loses his job and soon joins her parents working on a steamboat plying the Mississippi and providing musical entertainment en route. Sam comes to suspect that on the downriver journey someone had seen this magical child and arranged to steal her away, and this quest leads him not only into this raucous new life on the river and in the towns along its banks but also on a journey deep into the Arkansas wilderness. Here he begins to piece together what had happened to the girl—a discovery that endangers everyone involved and sheds new light on the massacre of his own family decades before. Tim Gautreaux brings to vivid life the exotic world of steamboats and shifting currents and rough crowds, of the music of the twenties, of a nation lurching away from war into an uneasy peace at a time when civilization was only beginning to penetrate a hinterlands in which law was often an unknown force. The Missing is the story of a man fighting to redeem himself, of parents coping with horrific loss with only a whisper of hope to sustain them, of others for whom kidnapping is either only a job or a dream come true. The suspense—and the complicated web of violence that eventually links Sam to complete strangers—is relentless, urgently engaging and, ultimately, profoundly moving, the finest demonstration yet of Gautreaux’s understanding of landscape, history, human travail, and hope.

The Missing

Literature & Fiction

Gautreaux, Tim.

Contemporary

KNOPF

A masterful novel set in 1920s Louisiana, The Missing is the story of Sam Simoneaux, a floorwalker at a New Orleans department store. When a little girl is kidnapped on Sam’s watch he is haunted by guilt, grief, and ghosts from his own troubled past. Determined to find her, Sam sets out on a journey through a world of music and violence, where riverboats teem with drinking and dancing, and where dark swamplands conceal those who choose to live by their own laws. With the fate of the stolen child looming, The Missing vividly depicts an America lurching away from war, where civilization is only beginning to penetrate the hinterlands, and a man must choose between compassion and vengeance.

The Missing (Vintage Contemporaries)

Literary

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

In his stunning debut collection, Tim Gautreaux chronicles the lives of "ordinary" people - a farmer on his porch, a woman fixing her tractor, a train engineer passing through a small town - who face extraordinary circumstances or decisions. The farmer has just learned he must raise his infant granddaughter; the woman is about to watch a helicopter land in her back field; the train engineer will cause a colossal disaster. Most of these stories are set in Louisiana, and some incorporate the customs and cadences of modern Cajun life. Many are about work and how people do their jobs, from radio announcers to pump repairmen, from bug exterminators to tugboat crews. These are stories about real people, stories filled with heart and humor, event and consequence. With an unerring eye for detail and a pitch-perfect ear for language, Tim Gautreaux brings his characters to life in twelve perfectly crafted, beautifully told tales of love, redemption, and second chances. Same Place, Same Things resonates with the hope and possibility of everyday life.

Same Place, Same Things

United States

St Martins Pr

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: Stories

Picador

Paul follows his young bride Colette as she leaves their small town for a better life in California and returns with her to Louisiana, where they must pick up the pieces of both their marriage and their livelihoods during the 1980s economic recession. Tour.

The Next Step in the Dance

Picador USA

A Cajun romance and adventure story set on the Louisiana gulf coast.

The Next Step in the Dance: A Novel

Welding with Children: Stories

A master storyteller's triumphant, moving collection about lost souls, found love, and rediscovered tradition Tim Gautreaux returns to the form that won him his first fans, with tales of family, sin, and redemption: from a man who realizes his grandchildren are growing up without any sense of right or wrong, and he's to blame; to a camera repairman who uncovers a young woman's secret in the undeveloped film she brings him; to a one-armed hitch-hiker who changes the life of the man who gives her a ride. Each one a small miracle of storytelling and compassion, these stories are a joyous confirmation of Tim Gautreaux's rare and generous talent.

Set largely in rural Louisiana, Tim Gautreaux's masterful debut story collection follows men and women whose ordinary lives reach a point of rupture, a moment when convention gives way to crisis and everything changes: A drunken train engineer charges toward disaster, a father borrows and old airplane to chase down his daughter's kidnapper, a young man falls in love with a voice on the radio. Written with humor, suspense, and a powerful affection for humanity in all its wild forms, Same Place, Same Things is the first great work by a master of the form.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year In eleven raucous, touching stories, Tim Gautreaux's Welding with Children traces the course of sin and redemption through the lives of small-town women and men in Louisiana. His unforgettable characters include a grandfather who discovers, while taking care of his grandchildren, that they are growing up without any sense at all of right and wrong; a camera repairman who discovers a woman's secret in her undeveloped film; and a one-armed hitchhiker who changes the life of the man who picks her up. Each one a small miracle of storytelling and compassion, Tim Gautreaux's stories are "a pleasure from start to finish. You want to hand [this book] to your friends and say 'read this' " (The Plain Dealer).

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gautreaux, Tim.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gautreaux, Tim.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gautreaux, Tim.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Missing

The Missing (Vintage Contemporaries)

Same Place, Same Things

Same Place, Same Things: Stories

The Next Step in the Dance

The Next Step in the Dance: A Novel

Welding with Children: Stories

Welding with Children: Stories

Same Place, Same Things: Stories

Welding with Children: Stories