Clark returns to his longtime haunt, the small eastern Kentucky town of Sourwood, in his latest story collection, steeped not just in the dialect of his beloved Appalachia but in the values at its core. The stories, centering on the young unnamed narrator and his older brother, Caleb, range from slapstick humor to poignant sketches of some of the town's quixotic inhabitants. The most touching of these revolves around Girty, a lonely woman with the mind of a child, who is knocked off a railroad trestle by a coal train. The collection wouldn't be complete without accounts of the ability of several local "witches" to cast spells, which of course leads to constant baiting and testing by the younger generation. Memorable characters (like the town constable who was "said to have a brain the size of a pea drought-grown") and a strong sense of the natural beauty surrounding Sourwood help explain why this place is obviously dear to the author's heart.

REVIEWS

"Clark grew up poor in Cattlettsburg in the northeastern corner of Kentucky in the 1940s, and these stories reflect that environment unfailingly." -- Appalachian Heritage

"Here in the new millennium is a writer whose original language, the language of frontier storytellers, is completely unspoiled...this language is pure American poetry." -- Gurney Norman, author of Kinfolks and Divine Right's Trip

"With his typical mastery, Billy C. Clark shows the reader an interesting array of characters in this small Kentucky town in the 1940s." -- Kentucky Monthly

"Clark recreates in loving and authoritative detail the unwritten history of a rural mountain community. A first-rate collection of stories and sketches." -- Richard Taylor, former Kentucky Poet Laureate