Tracks: A Novel in Stories

Fiction. Winner of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region. This novel-in-stories follows a diverse group of passengers on a train from Baltimore to Chicago, revealing the secrets of their past, their hopes for the future and just how intertwined their lives really are.

Journey by train from Baltimore to Chicago via the perspectives of a diverse array of passengers. They are the strangers we meet every day: a soldier slowly losing her faith in the war, a businesswoman learning to balance her job and the family she loves, a computer geek-turned-criminal, a Holocaust survivor finding hope in facing his fears, couples in love, a man dealing with the death of his parents, a poet hunting for inspiration, and a hit woman with a job to finish before the train arrives at its destination. Watch as these and other characters' lives and stories seamlessly link and intersect, quietly shaping and changing one another.

From nefarious goings-on in a Fells Point row house to prestigious partying on Federal Hill, Goodman's Baltimore is immediately recognizable and real. The stories in TRACKS stand alone, but they become stronger when linked together. A secondary character in one story becomes the main character in the next.

TRACKS examines the decisions each character faces and how those decisions, as well as their interactions with the other passengers, alter the path ahead and cast past experiences and choices in a new light.

Journey by train from Baltimore to Chicago via the perspectives of a diverse array of passengers. They are the strangers we meet every day: a soldier slowly losing his faith in the war, a businessman learning to balance his job and the family he loves, a computer geek-turned-criminal, a Holocaust survivor finding hope in facing her fears, couples in love, a woman dealing with the death of her parents, a poet hunting for inspiration, and a hit man with a job to finish before the train arrives at its destination. Watch as these and other characters' lives and stories seamlessly link and intersect, quietly shaping and changing one another.

Eric D. Goodman has been writing fiction since she was in the third grade, when a story assignment turned her on to the craft more than a quarter century ago. She regularly reads her fiction on Baltimore's NPR station, WYPR, and at book festivals and literary events. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including The Baltimore Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Writers Weekly, The Potomac, Grub Street, Scribble Magazine, The Arabesques Review, and New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers. Eric is the author of Flightless Goose, a storybook for children. TRACKS (Atticus Books, 2011) is her first novel.