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Steve Yarbrough's "A Life of Ease" on Valley Writers Read

http://steveyarbrough.net/

This week on Valley Writers Read, we hear a story titled "A Life of Ease" by acclaimed novelist Steve Yarbrough. John Grisham wrote of Yarbrough, [he is] "wickedly observant, funny, cynical, evocative, and he possesses a gift that cannot be taught: he can tell a story." 

Yarbrough's 2004 novel "Prisoners of War" was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and his 1999 novel "The Oxygen Man" won the California Book Award.  He taught at Fresno State from 1988 - 2009. Yarbrough's story is about a minister in a small church in Mississippi and his interactions with his parishioners. 

Franz Weinschenk, his parents and his older brother Fritz were indeed lucky to get out of Germany just before World War II. For a while they lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., before moving to Madera, CA. He graduated from Madera High and Fresno State. From 1948 to 1952 he taught at Edison High School in Fresno after which he was drafted and served in the US Army for two years.