It takes a worried man: stories

The eight stories in Tracy Daugherty's second collection move through the streets of Houston with the quick step of country music and the melancholy humor of the blues.

Romance and friendship develop in unlikely places, as people meet across the divide of race and class.

In "Comfort Me With Apples" (winner of the 2000 Texas Institute of Letters Brazos Short Fiction Prize), a man faces the loss of his family by helping others in their grief and finds himself, unexpectedly, part of a new, extended web of relationships.

In "A Worried Song After Work," a young labor lawyer nearing bumout rediscovers some of his earlier idealism as he tries to live up to what he perceives as the lofty expectations of his blind date.

In "Burying the Blues," a junior college history teacher seeks out the origin of the Houston blues, interviewing aging musicians and poking around black neighborhoods.

What he discovers is that knowing himself may be the hardest task of all.