The Temple of Air

Linking the lives and tales of a place and its people through tragedy and consequence, blind faith and redemption, The Temple of Air, Patricia Ann McNair’s award-winning collection of finely tuned short stories, spans three decades to present a portrait of working class Americans.

From babysitter and bus ticket salesman to construction worker and cult leader, the residents of New Hope--whose lives intersect after a tragic accident during a summer carnival--chase dreams and suffer disappointment against the subtle backdrop of a Midwestern landscape. The stories are unapologetic yet magical, bringing to life the daily struggle under the weight of war, poverty, natural disaster, illness, grief, and greed, even as the residents enjoy the comforts of solace, friendship, sex, love, ice cream, and the comics found wrapped around bubblegum.

This revised second edition features new stories that will delight both new and old readers, as well as a new introduction.

Patricia Ann McNair has lived 95 percent of her life in the Midwest. She’s managed a gas station, served as a medical volunteer in Honduras, sold pots and pans door to door, tended bar and breaded mushrooms, worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and taught aerobics. McNair’s work has appeared in various anthologies, magazines, and journals including American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, The Rumpus, Barrelhouse, The Nervous Breakdown, Superstition Review, LitHub, Hypertext, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and others. She’s received numerous Illinois Arts Council Awards, Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, and a Finalist Award for Prose from the Society of Midland Authors. An Associate Professor Emerita of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago, McNair facilitates adult writing workshops and is the Artistic Director of Interlochen College of Creative Arts’ Writers Retreat. She lives in Tucson with her husband, visual artist Philip Hartigan, and a yard visited by feral cats.

Also by Patricia Ann McNair:

And These Are the Good Times, essays

Responsible Adults, stories