New York, NY: Knopf (2013)

First Edition. Signed.

Fine in dust jacket.

In a captivating departure from the Deep South setting of his previous fiction, Steve Yarbrough now gives us a richly nuanced portrait of a marriage being reinvented in a small town in the Northeast, in his most surprising and compelling novel yet.

When Kristin Stevens loses her job in California's higher-education system, she and her husband, Cal, relocate to Massachusetts. Kristin takes a position at a smaller, less prestigious university and promptly becomes entangled in its delicate, overheated politics. Cal, whose musical talent is nothing more than a consuming avocation, spends his days alone, fixing up their new home. And as they settle into their early fifties, the two seem to exist in separate spheres entirely. At the same time, their younger neighbor Matt Drinnan watches as his ex-wife takes up with another man in town, with only himself to blame. Each facing a different sense of isolation, he and Kristin gravitate toward each other, at first in hopes of a platonic confidant but then, inevitably, as something more.

The Realm of Last Chances provides us with a subtle, moving exploration of relationships, loneliness, and our convoluted attempts to reach out to one another.

Born in Indianola, Mississippi, Steve Yarbrough is the author of five previous novels and three collections of stories. A PEN/Faulkner finalist, he has received the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, the Richard Wright Award, and another prize from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. He teaches at Emerson College and lives with his wife in Stoneham, Massachusetts.