“I don’t want to hang up.”
“I know. But we have to.”
“Hurry here to me.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you soon, Edward.”
“Yes, you will, dear.”
She giggles and then she hangs up, and I leave the parking lot and head for the interstate. I know exactly where I am going. As I guide the car onto the ramp and hit cruising speed, Michael Stipe is telling me that she is beautiful and she is the everything.
I know she is.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many to thank, so little space.
The “beta” readers: Jim Thomsen, Celeste Cornish, Jessica Park, Jill Rupert, Amy Pizarro, and R. J. Keller. Your earnest and eagerly offered feedback made this an immeasurably better book. I am indebted.
Elizabeth Holleran, you’re funny as hell and you provided one key line of dialogue I could have never conjured on my own. You know the one. Thank you.
Alex Carr, Jessica Poore, and the team at Amazon Publishing: Thank you for believing in Edward and giving him a home. It’s good to be with you again. And Charlotte Herscher, my developmental editor, you made this book so much better than it would have been otherwise. Thank you.
Chris Cauble, Linda Cauble, Janet Spencer, the team at Riverbend Publishing: It would have never happened in the first place if not for your hard work. I’m so thankful.
Mollie Glick and Foundry Literary + Media, the finest agent and agency in the land: It all comes back around. Thank you for your tireless work, your wisdom, and your cheer.
And, finally, to the readers and those who put the books in their hands: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I could never possibly say it enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Lancaster is a journalist who has worked at newspapers all over the country, including the San Jose Mercury News, where he served as lead editor for the paper’s coverage of the BALCO steroids scandal. He wrote 600 Hours of Edward—winner of a Montana Book Award honorable mention and a High Plains Book Award—in less than 600 hours during National Novel Writing Month in 2008. His other books include the novel The Summer Son and the short story collection Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure. Lancaster lives in Billings, Montana, with his wife.
PRAISE FOR CRAIG LANCASTER
“Craig Lancaster is a perfect novelist. Not only do his characters and stories seep into your heart with incredible longevity, but he manages to get them there in an unfussy, pure manner. He’s that skilled of a writer. It’s hard to know who I adore more: Lancaster’s character Edward Stanton or Lancaster himself for creating him. It’s rare that I get so attached and invested in a fictional person, but I find that I think about Edward quite often. It brings me indescribable happiness to be able to return to Edward in Edward Adrift, with his endearing eccentricities and his capacity to teach us all more than expected. He’s a reminder that we might miss out on spectacular people should we fail to look past societal expectations of what friends should and shouldn’t be. I wouldn’t miss Edward for the world.”
“A nearly perfect combination of traditional literary elements, mixing crowd-pleasing sappiness with indie-friendly subversion. A masterful blend of character and action.”
“This is a wonderful book.”
“The success of any short-story collection hinges on the author’s ability to create characters that immediately connect with readers. Lancaster excels on this point, ironically so because the inability to connect is his underlying theme.”
“Have you ever felt in your pocket and found a twenty you didn’t know you had? How ’bout a hundred-dollar bill, or a Montecristo cigar or a 24-karat diamond? That’s what reading Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure is like—close and discovered treasures.”
“A classic western tale of rough lives and gruff, dangerous men, of innocence betrayed and long, stumbling journeys to love.”
“Lancaster has crafted a novel that offers readers the most valuable gift any work of fiction can offer: an authentic emotional experience.”
Copyright
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Craig Lancaster
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781611099058
ISBN-10: 1611099056
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918990