Scavengers

About the Book

The stories in Scavengers are about people fighting to gain or hold onto some good. For the six-year-old heroine of "Dixie Lee" it is innocence, threatened by her kidnapper. Gilda, the young English teacher of "Scavengers," disappointed in love, wants a baby by artificial insemination. Middleton, the bumbling and incorrigible romantic of "Following Keats," seeks love in Italy. In "Fish or Fowl" Isabel Larkin, lost in La-La land, seems uncertain about her identity-but not about doing what is right. Jeff Franklin, in "This Day in Yankee History," tries mightily to convey his respect and liking for a distrustful young black boy he meets at the ballpark. These and others-a handsome alcoholic, a sex-obsessed homeless man, an ambitious cop, a professor drawn toward violence, a guilt-ridden man with a snuff movie-all struggle to possess a small part of what they have lost, thrown away, or never had.

About the Author

Barclay Bates has published many short stories and two novels, The Last of the White Guys and Lulu?s Revenge. He lives in San Francisco.