Welding with Children

by Tim Gautreaux

A master storyteller's triumphant, moving collection about lost souls, found love, and rediscovered tradition

Tim Gautreaux returns to the form that won him his first fans, with tales of family, sin, and from a man who realizes his grandchildren are growing up without any sense of right or wrong, and he's to blame; to a camera repairman who uncovers a young woman's secret in the undeveloped film she brings him; to a one-armed hitch-hiker who changes the life of the man who gives her a ride.

Each one a small miracle of storytelling and compassion, these stories are a joyous confirmation of Tim Gautreaux's rare and generous talent.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, School, Collections, Short Story Collection, Southern

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Timothy Martin Gautreaux (born 1947 in Morgan City, Louisiana) is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Hammond, Louisiana, where he is Writer in Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University.
His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Atlantic, Harper's, and GQ. His novel The Next Step in the Dance won the 1999 SEBA Book Award. His novel The Clearing won the 1999 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance SIBA Book Award and the 2003 Mid-South Independent Booksellers Association Award. He also won the 2005 John Dos Passos Prize.
Gautreaux also authored Same Place, Same Things and Welding with Children—collections of short stories. His 2009 novel The Missing was described as his "best yet" by New Orleans Times-Picayune book editor Susan Larson in a featured article.
Gautreaux notes that his family’s blue-collar background has been a significant influence on his writing. His father was a tugboat captain, and his grandfather was a steamboat engineer. Given those influences, he says, “I pride myself in writing a ‘broad-spectrum’ fiction, fiction that appeals to both intellectuals and blue-collar types. Many times I’ve heard stories of people who don’t read short stories, or people who have technical jobs, who like my fiction.”
In addition, Gautreaux has made clear that he is not interested in being classified as a "Southern writer," preferring instead to say that he is a "writer who happens to live in the South." He is much more comfortable embracing his Roman Catholicism, saying, "I've always been a Roman Catholic, since baptism, since birth."

Reviews

[Zoeytron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Tim Gautreaux's short stories.  He is a fine storyteller, and his tales are straightforward, insightful.  He doesn't need to go for the ubiquitous quirkiness of so many other shorties, and he doesn't aim to sucker punch you with a unexpected ending.  He simply tells a story and it is usually a good one.   

Here we have eleven short stories, a couple of so of which were included in Gautreaux's Signals.  A grandfather recognizes the necessity of cleaning up his own act before teaching his grandkids the ways of the world.  A man with a predilection for old photographs, a priest who develops a guilty conscience after hearing a shocking confession, an ex-con who threatens an old lady and between her tart tongue and loose dentures, gets more than he bargained for. 

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleven excellent short stories, each one a wonder of insight into the kind of people we all know. The first story made me laugh out loud more than once. This book was published in 1999, so I'm really looking forward to his new collection. It's rare than an author can do both novels and short stories equally well, but this one can.

[B. R. Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Gautreaux is a very fine writer (an older baby boomer) who writes interesting and entertaining stories about the people of Louisiana. The first story is about a grandfather (the welder) who realizes he is going to have to step up to the plate and play a major role in the upbringing of his grandchildren. One gets the feeling he just might succeed. There is a good story about a creative writing conference and in Mr Gautreaux’s telling of the story the reader might just get some meaningful pointers on writing. I found the last story (common sense vs politically correct nonsense) entertaining and music to my hears. I liked The Piano Tuner, Misuse of Light and Resistance. If you like short stories and are looking for a little truth from a skilled writer you might enjoy Welding with Children and all the others. Good stuff. Highly recommend.

[Logan]

This book is bogus!!! SO you asked what happend my friends??? I wanted to teach my 3 year old to weld. so i told him to read this book, i thought he knew how to read. I thought he was old enough.. I was wrong.. he welded for 2 hours without parental supervision and never put his welding helmet down.. he is now blind for the rest of his life. FML. I just might sue this book, for not teaching him the right technique.

[Jose Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

No lo conocía y creo que es de los mejores cuentistas que he leído. Cuentos impecables, de temas variados, ritmos diferentes, algunos tremendamente conmovedores, otros para llorar de risa pero TODOS profundamente íntimos

¡Buenísimo!

[Lauren Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea why Gautreaux hasn't been on my radar before this. What a splendid writer. These stories are funny, poignant, compassionate, and wise. I will be recommending all my creative writing students run out and buy his books.

[David Batten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book out loud with my wife. Equal parts hilarious and thoughtful, the writing is truly brilliant. Especially of interest from anyone who has lived in south Louisiana.

[Candice Callaghan-Wilkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was decent. (3.5) There were a few stand-outs for sure but some that just dragged out too long for me. "Good For the Soul" and "Resistance" were fantastic.

[Julianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a perfect lunch hour book for two reasons. First, each short story in this collection takes about 45 minutes to read start-to-finish, so the logistics couldn't have been better. And second, these stories take place for the most part in southern Louisiana (though not New Orleans), and I enjoyed getting that far out of the office each day.

Though each short story is self-contained and capable of standing on its own (no recurring characters), they all seem to complement each other. Each successive story seems like yet another glance out a different window in the same house--though each displays different features of the landscape, there is an overarching harmony that ties them all together.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is one of the best book of short stories I have read, most have some element of hope or humor. The two I didn’t get into as much were - Rodeo Parole, and Pine Oil Writers Conference. The first five stories I think are the best. And out of those five - top 3 were Welding with Children, Good for the Soul, and Easy Pickings especially.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories really knocked my socks off. Sorry Blood and Easy Pickings were my favorites, and I imagine I'll read them many times. Some of the other stories were also excellent, and there were a few that were good but not great. I will be seeking out his other books, books for sure.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love short stories that have an actual storyline and plot, as opposed to just some guy sitting in his kitchen and mournfully remembering how the trees outside used to have leaves on them, or whatever. These were excellent. I will be checking out his other collection ASAP.

[Zoom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a terrific collection of short stories all set in the American south against a backdrop of multi-generational poverty. I do love writers who can inject a little humour into sad stories. It adds warmth, somehow. Some of these stories were seriously funny.

[Jack Heller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories set in Louisiana (for most of them). I read this three years ago. My favorites are the title story, the one about the alcoholic priest, the one with the photographs of the ship, and the home invaders story.

[Robert Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is like the last one I read of his, but better. More immersive. Less unfortunate characters. Better endings.
Actually, no - skip that. It's just that I fell deeper in love with the style. Want to read the novels now, please, world. Give them to me.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago, I read the title story and it stuck clearly enough in my mind that when I ran across a copy of the book, I wanted to read it. Considering that I have forgotten entire novels, this is notable. The story remained much as I had remembered it; the first person recounting of a day spent caring for his daughters' children, and the realization that he is not free from blame in his daughters' life choices. Set in a small town in Mississippi, there's both a strong atmosphere of people not quite getting by, of cars rusting in side yards next to decaying porches, and an undercurrent of hope.

That sense of resilience is, along with rural Mississippi, the common themes of this excellent and diverse selection of stories. Gautreaux takes set-ups that with Daniel Woodrell or Donald Ray Pollock would end in a blood bath and steers them in unexpected directions. In one story, a desperate criminal's home invasion is written with an off-beat humor, as he is thwarted by the elderly woman he finds in the house, and as her neighbors notice something is wrong. In another, an old man, disoriented in the Wal-Mart parking lot, is kidnapped by a carelessly cruel opportunist. This is the harshest of the stories, but there is a bright note in the man's desperate attempts to remember his past. Other stories deal with the remnant of a leading family, living in her decaying house and relying on the piano tuner for company, a priest whose drinking problem and inability to say no lead him into illegal acts and middle-aged man attending a writing workshop finds that he may be the only attendee with a desire to improve his writing.

I'll be looking for more by Tim Gautreaux. He's a fine writer with a strong sense of place.

[James Emery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic short story collection. Whenever I have read short story collections in the past, one or two stories have usually stood out in the positive way, one or two in the negative, and the rest forgettable. Not here. Each story carries weight and meaning. There are no throwaways or fillers. And better yet, each one can stand on their own. I've felt with other collections, the themes and plot structures were so heavily similar that each story blurred. I'm not aware of the publication history of each short, but each one could stand alone in a literary journal and still carry significant impact. Putting the collection together, it adds to resonance.

[Dan Ream · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Gautreaux has re-awakened my love of the short story with his tales of small town folks from rural Louisiana. His stories are easy to read ( that is meant as praise) , and full of insights and humor. This is his first published collection of stories and the second of his books I have read , after the more recent anthology “Signals”. Those stories from this book included in “Signals” may be his best works - the stories “Welding with Children “ and “Easy Pickings” , for example- but every story in this collection was a pleasure to read and worth reading twice. Gautreaux has quickly become -along with Tom Robbins and Anne Tyler- one of my favorite living writers.

[keith koenigsberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some decent short stories, but most of them fall victim to a predictability. Just plain folks, often overcoming their families and circumstances for small triumphs and redemption. Something about the townie feel and the curmudgeonly characters suggests a comparison with Garrison Keilor, but the cuddliness of the characters and the simple predictability of the outcomes moves the book away from Keilor and towards the popular Chicken Soup series. There are a few gems sparkling here, but overall I could have done without this.

[Jenn Lombard · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something so symmetrical, poignant, and satisfying about a short story. I am always looking for new voices, perspectives and untold stories. This collection has a couple gems. “Good for the Soul”, and “Dancing with the one-armed Gal” just might make Ii to my AP lit high school class.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Gautreaux is a gifted, funny storyteller. He's definitely underrated, and should be given more appreciation. From social issues, lost souls, found love, and day-to-day relationships - these stories are poignant, humorous and touching. A 4.5 rating!

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable short story novel. Short stories are fun because you drop into and out of the storyline so quick. The author did a good job of immersing you in each story, leaving you wanting more at the end, but feeling satisfied with the small glance that you got of the character’s lives.

[Ann Goethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great LA characters. Uneven, some of the stories really fine.

[Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Each story leaves you wanting more. Made me miss home and driving the back roads of Louisiana.

[Kim Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laughing out loud by the 2nd page! Mr. Gautreaux has a fine ear for dialect and can tell a story, for sure! Enjoyed this collection.

[Coleman Bigelow · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are so entertaining and well written. I particularly enjoyed 'Easy Pickings' and 'Sorry Blood' but they're all really good.

[Ricardo Vela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brillante libro de relatos: auténtico, profundo y muy americano (en su mejor acepción). Gautreaux tiene fondo, interesa mucho lo que cuenta y lo que deja en el aire

[Ana RLQP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy buen cuentista. Leeré más de el . Muy recomendable para los que les gusten los relatos cortos.

[Itsmazyar]

sibtools.com Buy a welding machine

[Elena Díaz- Casanova Porres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Increíble! lo puedes echar hasta de menos cuando lo terminas