Some Kinds of Love: Stories

Praise, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

“Steve Yates’s stories have that far-underrated quality: range. Yates writes across genres, cultures, sexual borders, and always brings it home. The stories are funny, sad, sometimes wonderfully odd, always inventive and intelligent. Yates is a truly fresh and interesting voice in a time when too often we seem to celebrate the flashy fiction of me, me, me.” —Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories and The Heaven of Mercury “In this new collection, Steve Yates exhibits the best kind of ambition— in other words, he’s willing to take some big risks. Just when you think you know what’s coming, he throws you for yet another loop. I admire his work wholeheartedly, and I hope this book gets all the attention that it and the author deserve. Yates is one tremendous writer.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of Safe from the Neighbors “The language is totally unlike anything used by myself or any other writer of Ozarks fiction. [Yates’s] ‘new’ style is magic realism at its best.” —Donald Harington, author of The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks Advance praise for Some Kinds of Love J “This page intentionally left blank” Some Kinds of Love J “This page intentionally left blank” J Some Kinds of Love Stories Steve Yates University of Massachusetts Press Amherst and Boston These stories are works of fiction. Each character is fully a creation of the author’s imagination and in no way represents any person living or dead. Copyright © 2013 by Steve Yates All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-1-62534-028-3 (paper); 027-6 (hardcover) Designed by Sally Nichols Set in Adobe Garamond Pro & Garamond Premier Pro Printed and bound by Thomson-Shore, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yates, Steve B., 1968– [Short stories. Selections] Some kinds of love : stories / by Steve Yates. pages cm ISBN 978-1-62534-028-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-62534-027-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) I. Title. PS3625.A76S66 2013 813´.6—dc23 2012045696 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is dedicated to my wife, Tammy, who dared me to write a happy ending J “This page intentionally left blank” ...