Back in the Game

When a new job takes Stanley Mercer to the small town of Legion, he expects a peacful country life. Not shotgun pellets in his kitchen wallpaper, methamphetamine addicts knocking on his door, and the stench of hog lot lagoons. Falling in love with a married woman doesn't simplify matters either.

Sex in secret leads to more than he'd bargained for. Stanley is a schoolteacher, and his lover, Amy Rawlings, is the mother of one of his pupils. Amy is trong-minded and defends hat she wants, not just for herself and for her methamphetamine-addicted husband, but also for her child, Ginny. It is a delicate and volatile situation.

While trying to keep up appearances, Stanley also becomes involved in the struggles of Jim and Christine Snow, two children in the special education program at his school, and he befriends Nelson, an angry divorced father. These people need him, and he needs them, in ways that will surprise and challenge Stanley.

Ultimately, Stanley Mercer must decide how much he will accommodate the everyday lies, the awkward truths, and the risks involved when respectable adults behave badly - including himself. Because the most vulnerable people in Legion are its children.

Humorous, poignant, and uncompromising, Back in the Game is the story of rural America in the era of globalization, a place where the old cliches of country life no longer apply, but the yearnings for connection, for community and for love still run strong.

Charles Holdefer's previous novel, The Contractor, was an American Bookseller's Association Book Sense Pick. Other novels include Nice and Apology for Big Rod. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the Sorbonne, he teaches at the University of Poitiers, France.