Fiction. In Andrew Plattner's new story collection, A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE, characters try to improve their odds, on the racetrack and in life. In "Runaway," teenager Hawley Bolton longs to run away from his wealthy home to join racetrackers like Helen, who tells him, "remember something good always happens at the racetrack.... You just gotta hang around long enough for luck to find you." In "More Than a Hunch," the narrator has a tip he is sure will help his former girlfriend and her grown son if they would only listen. But in every story, whether on the track or anywhere else, characters do more than hanging around waiting for luck—they do everything they can to find it. "Plattner's stories always amaze me with delicacy, introspection, precision, observation, and profound empathy. A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE is a masterful performance first to last"—Frederick Barthelme.

Author City: ATLANTA, GA USA

Andrew Plattner's first short-story collection, Winter Money, won the Flannery O'Connor Award from the University of Georgia Press. His coffee-table book, a narrative about the evolution of the Kentucky Derby titled A History of the Run for the Roses, was a finalist for the Castleton-Lyons Prize as the best book on horse racing in 2009. A former turf writer, he has published short fiction in a number of literary journals such as The Paris Review, Epoch, Shenandoah, Northwest Review, and Sewanee Review. He lives in Atlanta and is currently at work on new stories and a novel manuscript.