Russell Banks - Trailerpark

No one knew the exact day Merle left the bobhouse, but one morning there was a sheet of open water where the bobhouse had been, dark water sparkling under the morning sun, and Merle himself was seen by several people that same day outside his trailer somberly scraping the bottom of his old dark green rowboat.

He built another bobhouse the following winter, and as usual spent most of the winter inside it. He never spoke of the lottery money, and you can be sure that no one else ever mentioned it to him, either. Until now, that is, when Merle seems to have gotten over his despair and the others their shame.

RUSSELL BANKS is the author of Cloudsplitter, Rule of the Bone and Continental Drift , among other titles. He has received numerous prizes and awards for his work, including the O. Henry and Best American Short Story Awards. He lives in upstate New York and Princeton, New Jersey, where he is the Howard G. B. Clark University Professor at Princeton.

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