James Leo Herlihy

Midnight Cowboy is considered by many to be one of the best American novels published since World War II. Joe Buck, a naive but eager and ambitious young Texan, decides to leave his dead-end job in search of a grand life he believes he will find in New York City....

In his second collection of short stories, James Leo Herlihy explores a landscape of people living on the fringes of normal society as the pleasures of daily life fade. Men and women search for the missing fragment of meaning from their existence with Herlihy’s signature humor....

It’s the fall of 1969, and Gloria Random’s best friend John has been called up for the draft. To escape it, they decide to run away from their Midwest town and their mundane lives. Renaming themselves Witch and Roy, they head to New York City....

Both an examination of the darker themes of alienation and isolation and an elevation of the oddities and quirks that make up human nature, Herlihy’s seven tales tackle the anxieties of fragile people and get to the heart of a world inhabited by perennial outsiders....

After following a clue to his brother's whereabouts, 16-year-old Clinton ventures to Coastal Florida hoping to find him, but instead gets a firsthand view of his brother’s callous destructiveness that will leave permanent marks on the young man....