I'll Be Here for You

Fiction. Winner of the Tartt First Fiction Award Set in the hardscrabble Western Pennsylvania mill town of Ganaego, the interconnected stories in I'LL BE HERE FOR YOU: DIARY OF A TOWN present an ethnic and generational stew of lives and passions. We meet Tody Wolding, director of Ganaego's ragtag thespian troupe and a crossdresser in a conservative community; Julie Namar, who borrows enough cash to keep her flagging dance studio going-only to give the money away; and Darlene Paczkowski, the librarian who has dreamed all the wrong dreams and met all the wrong men, who mourns the death of a desolate child who came to her story hours and never spoke.