Windfall - Hardcover

Magnuson, James

 
9780375502101: Windfall
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375502106 ISBN 13: 9780375502101
Verlag: Villard Books, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

While searching for the missing family cat, academic Ben Lindberg stumbles upon some hidden coolers containing a fortune in dirty money that he takes and uses to enhance his family's life, until dangerous strangers arrive in town to acquire their missing millions. 75,000 first printing. Tour.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

James Magnuson was born in 1941 and grew up in a series of small towns in Wisconsin and North Dakota.  After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, he made a living as a playwright in New York City, directing street theater in Harlem and producing his own plays in some of the most obscure theaters in the city.  In 1970, Magnuson was awarded a Hodder Fellowship and for the next four years, he wrote and directed eight new plays at Princeton University.  At age thirty two, Magnuson published his debut novel, Without Barbarians.  After publishing four more novels (The Rundown, Orphan Train, Open Season, and Money Mountain), receiving an NEA grant for fiction, and even having a few of his books optioned to the movies, Magnuson found himself with his back against the wall - b

James Magnuson is the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

Aus dem Klappentext

twenties and thirties, Ben never thought about money--more or less what you'd expect from a scholar whose specialty was the transcendentalists. But now, in his forties, trying to raise two children on a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year salary, it's all he thinks about.

Money is a problem for Ben Lindberg. As a college professor, he's fought long and hard to keep his intellectual life--and his family life--safe and secure. But he can't afford to replace his broken-down car, can't even afford to fix it, can't even afford to move his family into a better part of Austin.

Then, one night, things change. Searching for the stray family cat, Ben finds in the basement of an abandoned feed store eight coolers filled with fifty-dollar bills. A windfall.

He knew he should leave, but he couldn't. It was the most extraordinary moment of his life and he wanted to savor it.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

On a long hill just outside of Corsicana, Ben first noticed that he was losing power. Stepping on the accelerator felt like stepping on air. His speed dropped from sixty-five to fifty-five and then to fifty. Two pickups and a small Accord with an A&M sticker in the rear window zoomed past him. Once he got to the top of the rise, everything kicked in again; there wasn't a trace of a problem.

The moon shone over empty winter pastures and the drained swampland along the Trinity River. Katy and both children were asleep. He'd hoped to get back to Austin early enough to at least look over his lecture notes for the next day, but saying good-bye to Katy's family after a long vacation was not a simple thing.

For years they'd been spending Christmases on Katy's family's farm in Mississippi. There was no place in the world where Katy felt freer. The kids took care of themselves, roaming with their cousins, riding horses, going on long Jeep rides over the fields.

The family all gathered for the holiday--brothers, sisters, relatives from Boston and Chicago. Contrary to the nearly universally held opinion of Mississippi as a bastion of the unenlightened, these gatherings were as cosmopolitan as any Ben had ever experienced; there were folklorists and screenwriters, Harvard cardiologists and painters from Venice Beach. Sometimes it seemed as if meals for twenty were being prepared nonstop, but Katy loved it, working in the kitchen with her mother, organizing a piñata party in the garage for all the kids, black and white, who lived along the road, taking long walks through the pastures with her sister.

Their life in Austin seemed so small in comparison. On the long ride through Louisiana and East Texas, a quietness would settle over Katy, and Ben always felt an unacknowledged reproach in that quietness.

He heard someone stir. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw Matt shift under his quilt and throw his arm across his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. The headlights flashed across a shack with a hand-painted sign for barbecue tacked above the door; the place looked as if it had been closed for years. The van's tires hummed on the asphalt. He reached down into the sack next to his seat and fished out a couple of stale gingersnaps. He turned on the radio and flipped through the evangelists and the oldies stations, trying to keep himself alert.

Then, on a long incline ten miles east of Mount Calm, it happened again: the accelerator suddenly going soft as a beanbag chair, the van slowing down--sixty, fifty, forty--and this time the motor began to backfire. Katy woke up and turned sleepily to him.

"Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," he said. Ben was a man who kept his worries to himself.
As soon as they hit the top of the hill all difficulties vanished; once again the van was running like a top. Katy was asleep in another minute, but Ben was utterly awake.
This was all they needed. Maybe it was something small, a dirty carburetor filter, but when was it ever small? The van had 105,000 miles on it and they couldn't afford a new one, but the truth was, they couldn't afford a three-hundred-dollar repair bill either.

Every time something like this happened, it seemed to push them to the brink. In his twenties and thirties, Ben had never thought about money--more or less what you'd expect from a scholar whose specialty was the transcendentalists--but now, in his forties, trying to raise two children on a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year salary, it was all he thought about.
There wasn't an ounce of trouble the rest of the way. In the blackest of moods, Ben sped up the ramp onto I-35 at Waco, merging fearlessly with the thundering trucks and the shiny-bright sedans of returning college students.

They pulled up in front of their yellow two-story house in South Austin a little after ten and roused the sleeping children. As he shoved open the front door, Ben heard the slither of two weeks' mail piled inside. He carried the two heaviest suitcases into the bedroom and checked the phone messages. There were a couple of invitations to New Year's parties they'd missed and a half dozen calls from the kids' friends, but it was always less than you'd hoped for.

The kids handled coming back better than he and Katy did. After a couple of trips to the car to help carry things in, Abby was soon ensconced on her bed reading Sassy magazine and Matt was settled at his computer, installing the newest version of Wing Commander, which his uncle had given him for Christmas.

When Ben came into the kitchen with the soggy sackful of snacks and half-eaten apples, Katy was already on the phone with her mother, letting her know they'd arrived safely. Ben put the boxed fruit juices in the refrigerator, unlocked the back door, and stepped outside.

It was cold, and a wind had come up; the weatherman had said they could expect a freeze. The moon, shining through the gnarled branches of the live oaks, cast ghostly shadows on the brick patio.

He retrieved the sack of cat food from the toolshed and poured some of it into Dusty's metal dish. He gave a low whistle, rattling the bowl. When there was no response he called out three or four times. Still there was nothing. He unlocked the patio gate and went around the side of the house, calling as he went. Dusty had a habit of disappearing over Christmas vacation. It was her way of punishing them for abandoning her.

He left the dish of cat food on the back steps and went inside. Katy was still on the phone with her mother, so he went into the bedroom to use the other line. He called Alice, the ten-year-old down the block they paid a dollar a day to feed Dusty while they were away.
Alice hadn't seen the cat in three days, and she sounded as if she was near tears about it. "I put food out every day, just like you told me, and petted her," she said. "I don't know what could have happened . . ."

"But, Alice, when you came over in the morning, was the food gone?"
"No. Not for the last couple of days." Ben's silence only set her off again. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Lindberg. My dad and I went out looking for her yesterday . . ."
"It's not your fault, Alice," he said. "Please. It's just something Dusty does."

When Ben went back into the kitchen, Matt was hunched over a bowl of cereal and Katy stood at the stove making a grilled cheese sandwich for Abby. They wanted to know whom he'd been talking to, and when he told them the story, Abby was vociferous. He had to go out and look for Dusty. What if the Doberman that lived across the street had gotten hold of her? Their poor cat could be dying under some woodpile. Ben tried to argue that Dusty would probably show up in a day or two like she always did, but it was hopeless arguing. He was outvoted three to one.

Flashlight in hand, he jogged down the front steps and out across the yard. At ten-thirty, most of the houses were already dark.

They lived in a strange nonneighborhood cut up by too many church parking lots. Their house was the nicest one on the block, a two-story Victorian, but they, like their neighbors, were renters. The man next door was a carpenter who seemed to split his time between working on his boat in his driveway and smoking dope with the musician who lived on the other side of him. Across the street was the woman with the Doberman. As he passed under her windows, Ben could hear her arguing with her boyfriend; at least once or twice a month the police would come by.

He and Katy had found the house on a whirlwind three-day trip to Austin four years ago, right after he heard that he'd been hired. They took the house because it had lovely porches, the rent was cheap, and it let them take their time looking for a place to buy. Four years later they were...

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Verlag
Villard Books
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375502106
ISBN 13 
9780375502101
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
291
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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