The End of California

by: Steve Yarbrough

Published by: Vintage

Reviewed by Linda Lee

Pete Barrington is returning to his hometown in Loring, Mississippi, after having escaped it twenty-five years ago via a football scholarship. He’s lived in California and become a successful doctor, but his part in a scandal sends him back to the only other place he knows. His lovely wife and teenage daughter have never been anywhere but the West Coast and are full of trepidations about their new hometown.

There was also a quiet scandal when Pete moved west all those years ago. He’d had an affair with the mother of one of his high school friends. Her husband divorced her soon after he left town and his friend, Alan DePoyster, always blamed Pete for the break up of his family. Alan had tried to leave Loring, but ended up successful on the small town scale as the manager of the local Piggly Wiggly supermarket. He tried to be thankful and live the life he heard preached about in the church where he was an active member. He did it easily until Pete Barrington came back to town.

Steve Yarbrough is a storyteller. Using the same sets of words we use in everyday life, he creates characters who move into the loft in your mind for a stay; tension so thick you can’t drive through it in a Mack truck; and clean, flowing, evocative dialogue. He writes real characters whom seethe quietly with rage caused by bygone pain. He draws pictures with an undercurrent of anguish in everyday life, as if the shopkeeper, accountant, teacher or taxi driver you encounter could very well be living life in search of redemption from their desperation as they carry on normally. Even his incidental characters deal with the undercurrents of racism, ageism, and class distinctions.

Armchair Interviews says: Yarbrough, a professor of creative writing, is a powerful writer with things to say and prowess to say them well.