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Allegiance and Betrayal
Stories
Peter Makuck
Paper $19.95
| 978-0-8156-1015-1
| 2013
ebook 978-0-8156-5211-3
"Makuck returns to one of the most fertile wellsprings of literature—the family.
With grace and wit, he dramatizes family matters in post—World War II
America, drawing attention to why families matter and what is the matter
with so many of them. . . . As he points to the tragic and comic ways family
members exacerbate and resolve their differences, he repeatedly surprises us
with the mysterious ways people act. These stories are destined to beguile."—Henry Hart, author of James Dickey: The World as a Lie
"These stories dramatize the paradoxes of felt or forced connections as in a
first kiss from a troublesome married cousin that burns the narrator’s cheek
like a brand. Allegiance and Betrayal sears the reader with recognition."—Allen Wier, author of the award-winning novel Tehano
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Peter Makuck is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at East Carolina
University. He is the author of Long Lens: New and Selected Poems
and two collections of short stories, Breaking and Entering
and Costly Habits. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared
in the Georgia Review, Hudson Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review,
the Nation, and Gettysburg Review.
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The stories in Allegiance and Betrayal are set in cars, on top of a water
tower, in a bar, on a fishing boat, at a family farm, and at a swimming
pool. Each story carries an aura of the mystery surrounding family relations,
the enigma of love, the gaping rift between generations, the give-and-
take between husbands and wives, and the inevitability of loss. The
book begins with a suite of three stories about Tim Budney. In the first, he
reluctantly leaves home and his beloved hot rod Ford to attend a small
Catholic college; in the second, he experiences a conflict of allegiances—loyalty to a friend versus lying to his teacher and priest; in the third, he
imagines that his uncle, a pool hustler, is in danger and returns to the uncle’s
tavern where he witnesses something unforgettable. In other stories, a
Yankee house painter trying to sell his car encounters a tricky, Bible-quoting
southerner; a married couple hurtfully moves away from their friends of
twenty years without saying goodbye or leaving an address; a near fatal
scuba dive revives a friendship of many years; a family reunion turns ugly
on the subject of religion; and a high school French teacher arranges an
offshore fishing trip to settle a score with the football coach.
With deft prose and a generous spirit, Makuck explores the deep but
subtle range of human emotion. Humorous and tender, these stories offer rich
portraits of individuals struggling to overcome failed dreams and searching
for an answer to the question of what truly matters.
6 x 9, 168 pages
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