Tony Earley Reading Tony Earley's short stories in Here We Are in Paradise is like being able to actually tune into the personal thoughts of an average person as he/she goes about living the typical day-to-day activities in North Carolina, the author's home state. The story that gave the book its title as well as the one called "My Father's Heart" are indicative of the others included in this 1994 collection. The characters narrating these two stories, Peggy in the former and Jimmy in the latter, do not pursue the same direction: One ignores her dreams and lets her husband define them, and the other follows his hopes despite the fact that his mother disagrees. However, they both find a way to resolve these conflicts and find the positive side of life.

The reader "tunes" into the thoughts of Peggy, a middle-aged woman, after her recent double mastectomy. She and her husband, Vernon, live in a mobile home on 25 acres overlooking a pond. Although throughout her life Peggy has been shy and adverse to expressing personal feelings, part of her now wishes she could actually voice her feelings to her husband. As the story progresses, Peggy, who realizes that the operation has failed and the cancer continues to destroy her body, increasingly thinks about her own needs and relationship with Vernon. She recognizes that he has never loved the real her, since she has not allowed her true self to be known. Instead, he fell in love and still idolizes the Peggy in his mind: the beautiful, fragile girl he met at the square dance, when she was a high...

Although life is seen only from Peggy's point-of-view, the reader gets a clear idea of Vernon's loving, but simple ways. Peggy says that he has always been a good man, but there are many of these in the area. The only difference between him and other men was his baseball pitching expertise, but he left the semi-pros many years earlier to work in the mill.
Earley's writing style is relaxed and uncomplicated, just like Vernon. It lends itself well to the daily doldrums, in which most people spend their entire lives. His descriptions paint vivid pictures of the people and scenery of his home state, with a mixture of sincerity and some lightheartedness: "Vernon was tall and broad-shouldered, strong-looking, but with a narrow waist and a high round butt ... "

Earley wonderfully compares Peggy and the ducks that Vernon brings home. Much to his dismay (as well as the ducks'), snapping turtles or foxes eat all of the birds except one (and the fact that one remains is questionable), since they cannot fly away to safety.

In her own way, Peggy, too, dreams of flying away from her mundane life, especially since her life would soon be over like that of the ducks. However, in most part she has come to terms with what she has and has not achieved during her lifetime, including the…