What does it mean to start over at age twenty-seven to move beyond failure and disappointment and begin life again? In returning to his hometown a historic city perched on the snow-covered shores of Lake Superior Tom Johnson never suspects that he is being led to a young woman on the cusp of an irrevocable change. Funny and smart evocative and heart-breaking The Broken Key asks the questions posed by all memorable stories. What do we expect from life? What do we expect from ourselves? And where does one life end and another begin?

Paul Kilgore is the author of the short story collection Losing Camille which was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His work has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and he is a past winner of Minnesota Monthly's Tamarack Award for Short Fiction. The Broken Key is his debut novel.

"Brilliant . . . some of the best recent fiction by a Minnesota writer." -- Minneapolis StarTribune.

"Intimate stories handled with enormous sensitivity and empathy." -- New York Journal of Books.