Steve Yarbrough's fiction (such as Safe from the Neighbors) is rooted in the South, and though The Realm of Last Chances moves to a very different location--a small town near Boston--it loses none of the nuances of his prior work.
Kristin and Cal are both on the far side of 50, their 15-year marriage dulled by time and scarred from past pain. Kristin is starting a job as an administrator at a third-tier state school after being laid off from UC Berkley. Cal, an unemployed high-end construction worker, renovates their new home and spends hours lost in music and whiskey. Kristin is drawn into the politics of her college and soon begins an affair with Matt, a younger neighbor haunted by his own past failures.
Cal's response forms the heart of the novel. He has buried his memories of past reactions of brutal aggression; now he is forced to accept his capacity for violence and either give in to it or find a way to move forward. That he chooses the latter, in favor of Kristin and his marriage, is no smaller a victory for being quietly won. There is no noisy moment of redemption, just people living and connecting the best they can despite their flaws and self-protections.
Yarbrough is a master of the minute domestic detail, which lends his writing a texture in keeping with his moral nuances. A cameo appearance by author Richard Yates underscores the novel's celebration of literature and adds a further pleasure. Thoughtful, textured and moving, this is a novel to savor. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer