Stray
by Sheri Joseph
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Description
A musician is torn between his perfect wife and a young actor in an unconventional, inescapable love triangle. Thirty-year-old Kent McKutcheon has come to Atlanta with little ambition beyond his earnest desire to grow up and be a good person. But after a year of contented, stable existence with his Mennonite wife, Maggie, a defense attorney with a passion for social justice, Kent cannot quiet his longing for Paul, the lover who abandoned him three years before. When an accidental meeting show more revives their affair, the infatuation they've kept private soon threatens to destroy the public persona each man has created. Paul a talented acting student is unhappily bound to an older, ailing college professor and is slowly growing weary of the excesses of gay nightlife. A former wild child, he now craves the sense of family and stability that Kent and Maggie appear to share. Frustrated with Kent's guilt-ridden angst and repeated efforts to end their relationship, and eager to find the love and comfort which seem otherwise unavailable in his world, Paul pushes closer to Kent's marriage, ultimately developing a fixation on Maggie. In a single night that slips out of control, the volatile mix of emotions leads to murder, and all three characters are suddenly more involved with each other's lives than they could have foreseen. And none can hope to escape unscathed. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The first book of its sort that has sucked me in so completely--normally romantic dramas like this one have me scoffing like it were something Lifetime had conjured up...but that isn't the case here. "Stray" feels true to the intimacy of relationships, and none of the characters I could really bring myself to hate, instead I feel for each and everyone of them. In fact, I loved them all so much I wished in a naive, idealistic sort of way that I'd get a fairy-tale ending. Instead, what I got was something that rang true of life, without seeming like an exhausted and typical conclusion to a three-way love triangle. In my opinion it would probably make a great indie drama flick (but of course, much of the magic of this story rests in show more Joseph's careful and poetic portrayals of the three main characters, something I don't think can be easily translated into film.) I guess what I love most is that I feel like I can read this book again, right now, and still love every minute of it. Not many books can make me feel that way. I found out, much much later, that this is a sequel to "Bare Me Softly Over". I felt it stood very well on its own. show less
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Kent, a thirty-three-year-old musician who is dangerously far gone in his love for Paul, commits the sin that will ultimately bring the two halves of his life together: “with a word, he opened the first door on his marriage.”
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Author Information
5+ Works 160 Members
Thirty-three-year-old Sheri Joseph has a PH.D. in English and creative writing from the University of Georgia and is currently an assistant professor of fiction writing at Kentucky's Morehead State University. Her award-winning stories have been published in numerous literary magazines and she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for the show more concluding chapter of Bear Me Safely Over show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Stray
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- Members
- 25
- Popularity
- 1,073,809
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.20)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
