Main Street Rag Category:  Literary Fiction Publisher: Main Street Rag ISBN-10:  1599484862 Type: Fiction Pages: 140 Copyright: Sep 2, 2014 ISBN-13: 9781599484860 A English professor's life spirals slowly out of control following his divorce. T.J. Beckerman is unlucky in life and love. Newly divorced and struggling to make ends meet as an overworked and underpaid adjunct professor, he whiles away his evenings hopping from dive bar to dive bar with his two boozy friends. Skirt-chasing, but still pining for his ex-wife—who has a new love interest—Beckerman struggles to maintain a presence in his still-impressionable son’s life. Strapped for cash and desperate to pay his child support obligations, he takes a cue from a fellow professor and enters into a very questionable sideline—a shady business sure to end what little of an academic career he’s got left. Free Range Men is a modern day tragedy set in small-town Pennsylvania, told in a spare prose, and punctuated with dark humor.   Excerpt “I got a one-bedroom apartment over the laundromat. $400.00 a month, all utilities included. Except for the occasional water bug in the kitchen, and the one incident of domestic violence on the third floor that left a man clinging to life after his wife stabbed him in the chest with a steak knife, it wasn’t bad. There was a twentysomething woman who lived above me. She was on the heavy side, but that didn’t stop her from entertaining weekend paramours. She was quite vocal during these encounters which could be heard clearly from my apartment—especially with the television off and the windows open. I bought a goldfish in a bowl. It died. The man stabbed with the steak knife survived, but later overdosed on prescription sleeping pills. He died, too.”

Deborah Michel, author of Prosper in Love
"With Free Range Men, a picaresque tale that travels the terrain of sex, love, and poor decisions, William Bryan Smith proves himself that rare breed, a master of the tragicomic. He brilliantly brings to life a man who's damaged, whose morals are questionable as often as not, a disaster to those around him, but an utter delight for the reader. A novella of downfall and redemption, Free Range Men goes to dark places, but is lit by the deep charm of the writing."

The Small Press Book Review
William Bryan Smith "writes with a haunting sadness which he balances out perfectly with cynical humour and sarcastic wit...Smith is an exceptional storyteller who expertly develops his characters with equally loathsome and endearing qualities...Smith writes with an excellent measure of brevity and a remarkably well executed use of dark humour. This reader would happily place Free Range Men on the top row of his bookshelf alongside books by his own literary giants."
Full review here: http://thesmallpressbookreview.blogspot.com/2014/09/review-of-william-bryan-smiths-free.html