{"product_id":"the-space-between-now-and-then-paperback","title":"The Space Between Now and Then - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMichael Loyd Gray\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMichael Loyd Gray's prose unspools with the unmistakable cadence of a storyteller.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-Stuart Dybek, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Coast of Chicago\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ePaper Lantern\u003c\/em\u003e, winner of the Lannan Award, Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and multiple O. Henry Awards\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMichael Loyd Gray's fiction contains that heady brew of compassion and bravado that always leaves you rooting for the underdog. He's the sort of writer who can make you chuckle as you cry. His sensitivity and empathy for his own characters is so endearing, so admirable. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-Janet Goldberg, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Proprietor's Song \u003c\/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003e Like Human\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn Michael Loyd Gray's \"Hunters\", we find an exploration of masculinity characteristic of Hemingway and Jim Harrison. Through the innocent eyes of a boy, we witness what is now called toxic masculinity, a world in which male violence is less decided on than fated. It erupts as easily across a diner table as in the woods where men hunt deer to keep from killing each other. Gray's style is spare in characterizations hard as woodcuts.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-Johnny Payne, author of \u003cem\u003eA Graveyard of First Chapters, \u003c\/em\u003e and the 2021 IBPA Ben Franklin Gold Winner, \u003cem\u003eConfessions of a Gentleman Killer: A Novel\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the space between what was and what might have been, we discover who we really are.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA teenage boy watches his father take a brutal beating in a diner parking lot. A woman walks out after twenty-three years of mind-numbing marriage. A man learns on Facebook that his estranged brother has died and drives to the cemetery, wondering if he is capable of mourning someone he stopped loving long ago. A housewife feels something stir as a little handyman crawls into the darkness beneath her house.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Loyd Gray maps the fractured geography of the American heartland-its dive bars and loading docks, its rivers and diners, its unspoken codes of masculinity and survival. These are stories of men and women caught between the lives they inherited and the ones they're still trying to build, wrestling with fathers who couldn't love them right, marriages that calcified into silence, and moments of grace found in unlikely places. In these pages, the hardest distance to cross is often the one between two people in the same room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith prose as sharp as broken glass and as tender as a hand reaching across a prison booth, Gray captures working-class America at its most raw and beautiful. From the wreckage of families to the small redemptions we salvage from ruin, \u003cem\u003eThe Space Between Now and Then\u003c\/em\u003e reveals what it costs to become yourself-and what remains when everything else falls away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 234\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.53 x 8 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 26, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47132200599691,"sku":"9798993393582","price":38.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0670\/2579\/7259\/files\/3UnlTQ4QzW9798993393582.webp?v=1780566612","url":"https:\/\/thetaletrade.com\/products\/the-space-between-now-and-then-paperback","provider":"The Tale Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}