The Hurting Place A novel by H.J. Ted Gresham George is a masochist. He lives a gin-soaked, deliberately lonely life as owner and keeper of a bait stand oddly distant from the Gulf Coast of Texas. He’s contented with who he is until a kid named Pug pokes his face up against George’s front door and steps right into George’s troubled heart. Iris is the single mother of an odd “almost-twelve year old” not entirely well little boy dealing with the recent loss of her father. Pug draws the aging grump and troubled mother together in an entirely unexpected way. Everybody needs a place to go when they’re in pain. When heartache and anger, sorrow and frustration are overwhelming, everyone needs a Hurting Place. Iris had one. Pug had one. And it was there that crusty old George had a cathartic moment that changed him in ways he didn’t really understand. Find The Hurting Place, and find Hope, even in the midst of deepest sorrow.