In this debut collection, celebrated journalist Patrick Strickland's vivid and character-driven stories are as true to life as his award-winning reportage.

In A History of Heartache, boys grow up fast in the blazing heat of North Texas and men grow old before their time. A wayward son rides shotgun into a night he can't take back. A janitor at an abortion clinic can't outrun a ghost-or a camera. Strickland writes with clear-eyed realism and unsparing craftsmanship about common people-fathers and sons; widowers and junkies-poised on the knife-edge of hope.

With taut sentences and a wicked sense of humor, these 15 stories chart the small mercies and big mistakes that make a life: the songs we inherit, the bottles we empty, the tools we fashion from whatever's at hand. Gritty and tender in the same breath, this debut fiction collection asks what it costs to stay, what it takes to leave, and who we become when we do. Readers of Breece D'J Pancake and Denis Johnson will recognize the hard light, bruised humor, and sudden grace that burn through these pages.