A beautiful collection of short stories based on the author's childhood in Arizona. Williams reminds me how different life was for me around 10-14 years old compared to most kids today - mostly free to roam the neighborhood during the day when not in school. He also reminds me how conversation with my buds suddenly began to focus on speculation about girls!
These stories are captivating, well conceived, skillfully written, and are taking their place among the best stories in my library.
-Os ( )

A Dry Heat was surprising and wonderful. Short stories based on real life events, it’s engaging and easy to follow. It kind of took me back to my own childhood, teen age and then adult years. Gregory Williams’ family sounds like the type of family that I would have loved to hang around with. Mr Williams descriptions of characters and places are easy to imagine. Highly recommend.

This is a collection of short stories that will resonate with you long after you've finished reading. Gregory Williams' collection is a chronology of life and its challenges. Selected short stories are included for childhood, early/mid-adulthood, and late adulthood. I loved seeing how the collection wrapped up with death and the afterlife in "Rainbow Trout." Based on the title and description, I was expecting more references to Arizona (and Phoenix) to be interwoven into the book. As someone living in Phoenix, that was a slight disappointment to me. However, I highly enjoyed the book. Thank you to LibraryThing and Grand Canyon Press for my copy of the book. ( )

You don't have to have grown up playing baseball or be a physician to love this collection. It's great to sit down with if you only have a little time on your lunch hour, or you could read the whole thing in a lazy Sunday afternoon. I especially enjoyed the two stories of youth, one reminiscent of 'The Wonder Years' and the other with a darker vibe. The triumphs, travails (and temptations) of doctors dominate the middle group of stories, while the concluding stories focus on old age, loss and closure. My least favorite story, 'The Rainbow Trout,' may well be most people's favorite. By refraining from telling us what to think or feel, and instead showing us what the characters think, feel, and do, Williams allows us to enter into their moral world and reflect upon our own. ( )

--ARC provided thanks to Grand Canyon Press and LibraryThing.--

Blurbs do the collection a disservice, suggesting a male-centric vanity that does not happen. The stories are very human, very personal, and quite tightly focused in familiar, slice-of-life scenarios; while each is presented via a male perspective character, that is certainly not the limit of their scope. Maturity, morality, and mortality are the guiding themes throughout, and Williams does a superb job of making clear that a human life is a work in progress at all stages of the game. The female characters also reflect Williams' deep respect for the women and girls in his life.

While I might rate this collection a bit lower because the stories don't happen in places or situations that overlap with my life or interests, I am really taken by Williams' command of prose. The stories are told with a clear economy, an intuitive understanding of how to express the most with little frosting. Not all the stories hit the same, of course, so while "Three Strides to Thirty" felt like a throwaway to me and I'll not reread it, "Rounding the Bases" and "Section" were simply brilliant. I am sad at the passing of this fellow I'd never met, since I'd love to have future work of his to look forward to.

A final word about the text itself merits mention since I frequently criticize small presses: Grand Canyon Press has done a fine job with the proofing, editing, and layout of this slim volume. It was a joy to hold and read, and they should be proud. ( )