A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me: Stories and a Novella

Gates's characters, young or old or neither, are well educated, broadly knowledgeable, often creative and variously accomplished, whether as a doctor or a composer, an academic or a journalist. And every one of them carries a full supply of the human condition: parents in assisted-living - or assisted-dying - facilities, too many or too few people in their families and marriages, the ties that bind a sometimes messy knot, age an implacable foe, impulses pulling them away from comfort into distraction or catastrophe. Terrifyingly self-aware, they refuse to go gently - even when they're going nowhere fast, in settings that range across the metropolitan and suburban Northeast to the countryside upstate and in New England.

David Gates lives in Missoula, where he teaches at the University of Montana, and in Granville, New York, where he is associated with the Bennington Writing Seminars. A former Guggenheim Fellow, for many years he was a writer and editor at Newsweek, where he specialized in music and books.

Lesa Lockford is a professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. She teaches courses in voice for the actor, dialects, acting, and performance studies. She is also a writer and performer. Before becoming a teacher, she was a professional actor in Great Britain where she appeared in a variety of roles in television, film, and on the stage. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Eric Michael Summerer is a voice actor and producer who has narrated numerous audiobooks, as well as countless instructional recordings and video games. He is an Audie award finalist (for Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End) and shares an AudioFile Earphones Award (for William Gibson's Burning Chrome). In addition, Eric co-hosts the popular boardgame podcast The Dice Tower.