Other editions of book Pelican Road

Winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Award (2009)Early on the morning of Christmas Eve, 1940, Artemus Kane leaves his sweetheart's New Orleans flat to catch the northbound Silver Star, a first-class passenger train on the Southern Railway. Artemus, a brakeman, will help bring the train to Meridian, Mississippi, a 180-mile journey along what the railroad men call "Pelican Road." Meanwhile, in the Meridian yard, conductor Frank Smith awakes in his caboose. A few hours later, Smith will take charge of a fast freight train southbound for the Crescent City.Smith and Kane, who served together in the Marine Corps during World War I, are old comrades. Their friendship flourishes amid the community of railroad men who work along Pelican Road--a brotherhood whose lives are spent among the lights and shadows, the danger and humor and violence, and the loneliness and camaraderie of railroad work. On this Christmas Eve, however, Smith and Kane are each bound on a journey that will alter their lives forever.Pelican Road is a novel played out against the landscape of a vanished way of life. Howard Bahr, who worked as a brakeman and yard clerk in the twilight years of old-time railroading, brings the authenticity of experience to his narrative. Pelican Road, however, seems more than a railroad adventure story. At its heart, the novel is about friendship and love, about men and women who persevere in the face of hardship and danger and who, in the end, find redemption in each other.

From the acclaimed author of The Judas Field, a beautiful and haunting portrait of the men who served on the great American railroads.It’s Christmas Eve, 1940. Along an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, two locomotives travel toward one another through the dark winter landscape. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512 southbound freight, reminisces about the last trip he made through the snow. And though he can remember every detail about that voyage in 1923, what he can’t recall are the events of a few hours ago—where he ate breakfast, how he got the gash on his forehead, or what he did to make his crew treat him so strangely.On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with: French trenches and German snipers, a failed marriage, and a too-short layover spent with Anna, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City. In Pelican Road, Howard Bahr returns to his greatest theme—the tragic nobility of those attempting to overcome difficult situations through love, honor, and sacrifice—and shows that on the railway, catastrophe is never more than a distracted moment away.

From the acclaimed author of The Judas Field, a beautiful and haunting portrait of the men who served on the great American railroads.It’s Christmas Eve, 1940. Along an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, two locomotives travel toward one another through the dark winter landscape. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512 southbound freight, reminisces about the last trip he made through the snow. And though he can remember every detail about that voyage in 1923, what he can’t recall are the events of a few hours ago — where he ate breakfast, how he got the gash on his forehead, or what he did to make his crew treat him so strangely.On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with: French trenches and German snipers, a failed marriage, and a too-short layover spent with Anna, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City.In Pelican Road, Howard Bahr returns to his greatest theme — the tragic nobility of those attempting to overcome difficult situations through love, honor, and sacrifice — and shows that on the railway, catastrophe is never more than a distracted moment away.

From the acclaimed author of The Judas Field, a beautiful and haunting portrait of the men who served on the great American railroads.It’s Christmas Eve, 1940. Along an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, two locomotives travel toward one another through the dark winter landscape. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512 southbound freight, reminisces about the last trip he made through the snow. And though he can remember every detail about that voyage in 1923, what he can’t recall are the events of a few hours ago — where he ate breakfast, how he got the gash on his forehead, or what he did to make his crew treat him so strangely.On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with: French trenches and German snipers, a failed marriage, and a too-short layover spent with Anna, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City.In Pelican Road, Howard Bahr returns to his greatest theme — the tragic nobility of those attempting to overcome difficult situations through love, honor, and sacrifice — and shows that on the railway, catastrophe is never more than a distracted moment away.

From the acclaimed author of 'The Black Flower', a beautiful and haunting portrait of the men who served on the great American railroads. Christmas Eve, 1940. On the Pelican Road, an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi and New Orleans, two trains travel toward one another through the snow. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512, a southbound freight, can remember every detail of the last trip he made in the snow, in 1923. What he can t recall are the events of a few hours ago - where he ate his breakfast, how he got the troublesome gash. On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with. Memories of French trenches and German snipers, of a failed marriage, of a too - short layover spent with Anna Rose Dangerfield, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City.