His subsequent work—five novels, another story collection, and two books of nonfiction—continued to bring extraordinary praise and national attention to the writer New York Newsday called a "master." In November 2004, Brown sent the nearly completed manuscript of his sixth novel to his literary agent. A week later, he died of a massive heart attack. He was fifty-three years old.A Miracle of Catfish is that novel. Brown's trademarks—his raw detail, pared-down prose, and characters under siege—are all here. This beautiful, heartbreaking anthem to the writer's own North Mississippi land and the hard-working, hard-loving, hard-losing men it spawns is the story of one year in the lives of five characters—an old farmer with a new pond he wants stocked with baby catfish; a bankrupt fish pond stocker who secretly releases his forty-pound brood catfish into the farmer's pond; a little boy from the trailer home across the road who inadvertently hooks the behemoth catfish; the boy's inept father; and a former convict down the road who kills a second time to save his daughter. That Larry Brown died so young, and before he could see A Miracle of Catfish published, is a tragedy. That he had time to enrich the legacy of his work with this remarkable book is a blessing.

    What you are about to encounter is the unfiltered stuff of the dream, and that is wild, terrifying, provocative, and unsettling material. In this volume, some of the best living Southern writers are offering up a feast of their dreams, wonderful and awful in equal measure, for you to enjoy. These dream stories and poems will tell you what you have always known, but what you are too afraid to say out loud in the full light of day: that we are a race of chimeras, beings made up of the incompatible parts of innumerable mutually antagonistic creatures. Our pieces do not fit together. We are, when were willing to tell the truth about ourselves, surreal at our hearts. Welcome to the Surreal South.Contents:The echo of neighborly bones by Daniel WoodrellSales call by Susan WoodringHelp me find my spaceman lover by Robert Olen ButlerWillows / The swan by Rodney JonesThe river that was my father / Poem in the ninth month by Beth Ann FennellyFat lighter by George SingletonSautéing the platygast by Dean PaschalPig helmet & the wall of life by Pinckney BenedictThe drinking gourd by Katie EstillSwans by Benjamin PercyThe Bear Bryant funeral train by Brad ViceNight by Jacinda TownsendDog song by Ann PancakeThe era of great numbers by Lee K. AbbottDecirculating the monkey by Chris OffuttCorpse bird by Ron RashMother by Andrew HudginsThe widow Sunday by Kathy ConnerSmonk gets out alive by Tom FranklinWitches, all by Laura BenedictThe paperhanger by William GaySilver man / Dinner date by Joy Beshears HayCrazy ladies by Greg JohnsonCactus Vic and his marvelous magical elephant / The best chicken in Arkansas by Jon TribbleBirdfists by Julianna BaggottThe bingo master by Joyce Carol OatesThe truth and all its ugly by Kyle MinorContributors biographies & notes