Quotes from Aaron Stander

Affluence is always relative, depending on where you are on the food chain.

Elkins sat and watched her go down the hall. He had always loved red hair. His first love, a girl in his third grade class, had red hair. And he had always liked white shorts on a shapely woman.

Mike said it was deer season.

the packaging is more important than the content.

The lights of my generation have almost all gone out.

Even though I knew the whole thing was absolutely impossible, I really fell for him. But," she smiled, "someone new will come along.

the base of the hill he brought the vehicle to a crawl, then carefully turned onto a two-track and threaded his way through two fieldstone columns, an old wooden gate angling away from one

after the eleven o'clock news. She cleared their bottles and glasses, wiped the bar and the counters. Then she locked the front door to prevent any more customers from coming in for a nightcap, not that there was much chance of that late on a stormy weeknight. She emptied the meager contents of the

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.

They went down to Paw Paw to get a couple of truckloads of grapes we bought for one of our non-estate wines.

The Boyds, Prescott and Dorothy." Sue gave Ray a knowing look as she continued. "The Crescent Cove—Round Island Hunt Club, I guess they own it now." Ray was familiar with the location: a gated and fenced enclave that held the largest tract of private land in the county.

couple of weeks last year after she

one of the great things about our country is that you get to believe or not believe in anything you want.

Hanna coarsely grated a chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano as Ray put the finishing touches on a pasta dish, a combination of oven-roasted parsnips, bacon, and heavy cream mixed with al dente farfalle.

did for a bit. Now I can't believe I ever used those things. Think

Ma stood for a long moment and took in the panorama. Her gaze moving from left to right, she viewed the perimeter of the ice-covered plain. Three sides of the lake were bordered in marshland. The dusky skeletons of long dead pine trees angled helter-skelter at the verge of the marshes. Beyond, scrub forests of oak and maple in saturnine nakedness stood on the rolling terrain. A dark overcast added to the grimness of the tableau. Ma looked over the expanse of ice toward the old resort.

A derelict windmill stood at the top. The tower was covered with a thick layer of rust and most of the blades were missing, the remaining ones twisted and distorted. Just below it was the massive storage tank, steel bands on wood, now collapsing inward. Ma crossed the ridge and looked out at Lake Michigan.

But the instrument she picked up and insisted on playing was this beautiful little quarter-size violin, setup for the left hand. They tried to move her to a right-hand instrument, and she absolutely refused. So Jill and her mother reached a compromise of sorts. Jill would play the violin, which her mother desperately wanted her to do, but she would play on the left-hand instrument.

then he collapsed backwards, head loose, body limp. The heavy, amber whiskey tumbler fell. Its bottom edge slammed into the thick, grass-mat flooring, bounced once, turned a

Two blocks away, in the shadows of the old state asylum—a large complex of yellow-brick Victorian buildings