Some of the stories of A Local Hanging and Other Stories deal with the lesser characters of Shacking Up. Others upset our conventional expectations. In the title-story a man tries to write the truth about a local lynching so that no legends will arise — and achieves just the opposite. In "Longing," a police chief struggles with the burden of powers we have imposed upon him. The most recent story in the collection is "A Blunt Affair" — commissioned by the CBC to mark New Brunswick's 200th birthday — in which a widow finds herself pressured by circumstances into a marriage she doesn't want.

Kent Thompson was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1936. From 1966 to 1994 he taught English and creative writing at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, serving twice as editor of The Fiddlehead. He now lives in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. He has edited three anthologies, and he has published two books of poetry, a cycling guidebook, five novels, and two story collections. "A Local Hanging," a winner in the 1981 CBC Canadian Literary Awards, appeared in A Local Hanging and Other Stories (1984).

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