The Direction You Go

Bradley has been best friends with Jerry for twenty-five years. He has been a docent at the Ernest Hemingway Birth House in Oak Park for almost ten years. When Jerry needs time and space to recover from an automobile accident Brad manages to get a leave of absence from his job at an insurance company. He and Jerry stay at a B&B in Piggott, Arkansas for six months while Jerry is recovering. Brad visits the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum more than a few times. A niece of the woman who owns the B&B proves to be the woman Brad has been looking for. They fall in love. Will she agree to marry him and move to his home in Oak Park, Illinois? She has only six months to decide.

Brad loves Hemingway and gives tours at Hemingway's birth house in Oak Park, Illinois. When his best friend and roommate Jerry is hurt in an automobile accident, he takes him to Piggott, Arkansas to recover far away from Jerry's overbearing mother and near the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum. They stay in a B&B in Piggott for six months and become good friends with Aunt Millie who runs the B&B. They also become good friends with her niece Lynda who serves them lunch each day in the local café. Brad falls in love with Lynda and they must decide in the six-month's window whether to marry or not. They compare attitudes on travel, money, pets, children, and everything else they can think of. Brad, a writer who is not writing, shares his portfolio of poems with Lynda. Lynda talks him into attending church again. Brad also banters with the people of Piggott about the personality of Ernest Hemingway which he defends as strongly as possible. At the end of six months the boys leave Piggott. Will Lynda be with them?

Robert L. Glass and his wife Karen currently live in Oak Park, Illinois where Robert has been a life-long resident. His great great Grandfather was the second settler in Oak Park so today he is the surviving member of the family which has been resident in Oak Park the longest. Robert attended Grinnell College where he earned a B.A. in English. For more than twenty-five years he has been a docent in the Ernest Hemingway birth house. For the past decade he has attended nearly all Hemingway Conferences. He has given four lectures on Ernest Hemingway, most importantly at the Nineteenth Century Charitable Association where he and Karen are members. He has written six short stories and several poems. This is his first novel.