The Least You Need to Know Stories Author:Lee Martin The Least You Need to Know, Lee Martin's first collection of stories, investigates crime scenes, infidelities, farm foreclosures, funeral homes, and suicides as sites for profoundly human interactions. Lyrical and clean, these stories explore the carpentry of love as we see sons and fathers, husbands and wives "measure the braces and joints of ... more »their hearts" (from "Secrets"). With unlikely heroes named Sammy the Egg, The Commodore, Prince Cocoa Toussaint, and Buddy Day, The Least You Need to Know ponders how we shoulder our lives: what it means, for instance, to be a Jew during racial tension in 1955 Evansville, Indiana: "If the world's out to get the Jews, . . . Why be a Jew?" (from "The Price Is the Price"). "These are beautifully written stories of violence, fathers and sons, and the large and small improvisations that make up American life. Lee Martin's is a very impressive first collection."-Lorrie Moore« less