Rest Area

harply tuned, haunting, and darkly humorous, these stories take readers from the country fair to the suburban home to the boy scout camping trip, flipping each stopping point on its head. Every story begins and ends with one voice, and each contains a mystery or turn of events that shocks, entertains, and frightens-and often all three. In the title story, rest area, a father chats with other drivers while he waits for his daughter at a rest stop. She went to the bathroom, and he's been waiting for her ever since, and now he's handing out her picture. Have you seen her? Are you sure you haven't seen her? A remarkable combination of unexpected tenderness, deep sensitivity, and a fascination with the darker side of domesticity, these tales of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations will echo in your head long after you close the pages.

Clay Mcleod Chapman first began writing plays at the age of twelve, when he won a play-writing contest in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. Since then, he has developed a style of character monologue that he both performs onstage and transforms to the page. He has performed his "Pumpkin Pie Show," a rigorous storytelling session backed with its own live soundtrack, throughout the United States, at the Romania International Theatre Festival, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He lives in Brooklyn, New York