The Piano Tuner

Cover, Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments

The Piano Tuner Winner of The Planner/ O'Connor Award For Short Fiction The Piano Tuner Stories by Peter Meinke The University of Georgia Press Athens and London © 1986 by Peter Meinke Published by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 All rights reserved Designed by Betty P. McDaniel Set in 10 on 13 Trump Mediaeval with Gill Sans display The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America 90 89 88 87 C 5 4 3 98 97 96 95 94 P 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Meinke, Peter. The Piano tuner. I. Title. PS3563.E348P5 1986 813'.54 85-28864 ISBN 0-8203-0844-7 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-8203-1645-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN for this digital edition: 978-0-8203-4358-7 For Jeanne This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge the magazines and anthologies in which some of the stories in this volume first appeared. 'The Piano Tuner" and 'The Twisted River" were published in the Atlantic Monthly, and 'The Piano Tuner" was subsequently selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 19^5 (Houghton Mifflin). "Losers Pay" first appeared in the Carleton Miscellany. "Even Crazy Old Barmaids Need Love" was originally published in Gallery. "A Decent Life" first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review. "Alice's Brother," "The Ponoes," "Conversation with a Pole," and "The Bracelet" were published in Yankee, and "The Ponoes" was selected for inclusion in Prize Stories 1983: The O'Henry Awards (Doubleday & Company). "Ruby Lemons" first appeared in From Mt. San Angelo: Stories, Poems, and Essays (Associated University Presses). This page intentionally left blank ...