"From the author of the widely praised novel The Lake, the River & the Other Lake—the love story of a man and a woman who choose an unconventional way to redefine themselves during and after World War II.
It's 1944 and Wink Dutton, a former illustrator for Stars and Stripes, has returned to Chicago after an injury to his drawing hand gets him an unwanted discharge from the service. Renting a room in the back of a camera shop run by Sal Chesterton—the wife of one of Wink's buddies still stationed in the Philippines—Wink is surprised to learn how Sal is making ends meet: producing pinup photos for the soldiers favorite girlie magazines. In fact, she's using herself as a model. When Wink becomes a partner in her covert enterprise, it's the beginning of an unspoken romance that manages to be sexy and innocent—a romance that grows and deepens as the two discover in themselves and each other a kind of ingenious practicality that readies them, together, for a rapidly changing postwar world.
Wink and Sal are charmers, and Steve Amick has captured their time and generation with uncanny freshness and flair. In their unexpected journey he gives us a beautifully understated love letter to the America that helped shape them." - Nothing but a Smile (Pantheon)
Steve Amick was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he still lives. A graduate of St. Lawrence University, he received an MFA from George Mason University. His short stories have appeared in Playboy, The Southern Review, Story, McSweeney's, in the anthology The Sound of Writing, and on National Public Radio.
February 12, 2009
