H.E. Bates Companion

A thirteen-part story that could be considered Bates's first novella and which was chosen to open his first collection of stories. Bates depicts a man who looks back on decades of poor decisions and poor luck with dismay. As the sale of his farm nears, he suffers increasingly severe heart pains, matched by hallucinations that intertwine memories of childhood, his deceased wife, and farming incidents. The main character is probably based on Bates's maternal grandfather, George William Lucas. Three other stories in the collection deal with the aged, and the tale bears some similarity in its theme with "In View of the Fact That." In Day's End and Other Stories (1928).