The Purchase of Order

Stories

Title Details

Pages: 160

Trim size: 5.500in x 8.500in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 06/01/1995

ISBN: 9-780-8203-1734-2

List Price: $22.95

Hardcover

Pub Date: 04/01/2017

ISBN: 9-780-8203-5248-0

List Price: $83.95

The Purchase of Order

Stories

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  • Description
  • Reviews
In the cadence of a Texas drawl or the whisper of a midday kiss, these stories by Gail Galloway Adams capture untidy lives in which the pain of living is confounded with a grin. From the yoga instructor with her Earthshoes and mantras to the Texas aunt who wills herself insane, the characters in Adams's stories boldly face the sorrows and strains of everyday life, seeking relief in humor and redemption in words. The Purchase of Order depicts characters from Germany to Georgia, men and women attempting to find meaning within memory, who take joy in giving of themselves.

If there is a heaven, I'm sure Flannery O'Connor is in it, and if she's looking down on Gail Galloway Adams right now, I'm sure she's pleased.

—Susan Wood, Washington Post

Adams possesses the ability to convey the poignancy and drama found even in everyday things. . . . Each story is told with an enthralling mixture of sadness and wit.

Southern Living

A deeply felt, solidly written book.

Chicago Tribune

Ranging widely over the lives of authentic men and women and their idiosyncracies, these tales are impressive models of the storytelling art.

Publishers Weekly

About the Author/Editor

GAIL GALLOWAY ADAMS is a professor emeritus at West Virginia University, where she taught creative writing for over twenty years. Adams served as fiction editor for Arts and Letters: A Literary Journal and for the Potomac Review. She has been a reader/judge for several short fiction awards series. She has recently taught at Kenyon College, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and the Wild Acres Writers Workshop. She also works privately as a short story and novel editorial consultant and lives
on a small family ranch in central Texas.