The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver this story to readers, having assembled and refined the manuscript to prepare it for publication. Chinaberry, named for the ranch that serves as the centerpiece of the story, is Still's last and perhaps greatest contribution to American literature.Chinaberry follows the adventures of a young boy as he travels to Texas from Alabama in search of work on a cotton farm. Upon arriving, he discovers the ranch of Anson and Lurie Winters, a young couple whose lives are defined by hard work, family, and a tragedy that haunts their past. Still's entrancing narrative centers on the boy's experience at the ranch under Anson's watchful eye and Lurie's doting care, highlighting the importance of home, whether it is defined by people or a place.In this celebration of the art of storytelling, Still captures a time and place that are gone forever and introduces the reader to an unforgettable cast of characters, illustrating the impact that one person can have on another. A combination of memoir and imagination, truth and fiction, Chinaberry is a work of art that leaves the reader in awe of Still's mastery of language and thankful for the lifetime of wisdom that manifests itself in his work.

    So He sent us His very strongest men and women." So begins the heartwarming story of Verna Mae and her father, Isom B. "Kitteneye" Slone, an extraordinary personal family history set in the hills around Caney Creek in Knott County, Kentucky.

    Into Thin Air explores the complex emotional bonds of families, the intricacies of love, and the impact on people's lives when they are unwilling or unable to connect with each other.

    "Others have observed the natural man in the American condition before, but nobody has done it with such good humor. Ed McClanahan's good humor both sharpens his eye and gentles his vision. I don't know where else, now, you would find workmanship that is at once so meticulous and so exuberant" - Wendell Berry.

    Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And down by the river, girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Yet for ten-year-old Eli Book, the summer of 1976 is the one that threatened to tear his family apart. There is his distant mother; his traumatized Vietnam vet dad; his wild sister; his former warprotester aunt; and his tough yet troubled best friend, Edie, the only person with whom he can be himself. As tempers flare and his father’s nightmares rage, Eli watches from the sidelines, but soon even he cannot escape the current of conflict. From Silas House comes a tender look at the complexities of childhood and the realities of war — a quintessentially Southern novel filled with music, nostalgic detail, a deep respect for nature, and a powerful sense of place.

    On the eve of his fortieth birthday, Gabe takes his own history in hand in an attempt to reconcile a family shattered by his betrayal of his older brother, Michael. As Gabe contends with a host of personal demons, he recounts his lifelong love for his brother's wife, Myra--whose own demons threaten to overwhelm all three of them.

    Just as she begins to trust Scott, her landlord and romantic interest, and share her secrets with him, love for a little foster girl, Sarah Taylor, challenges their new relationship. When Sarah is lost in the mountains, the suspense and conflict build and the lives of several characters are caught in the balance.

    Now the stories alone are available for the first time in trade paperback.

    There she meets farm wife Irenie Lambey, who is immediately drawn to the lady agent’s self-possession. Already, cracks are emerging in Irenie’s fragile marriage to Brodis, an ex-logger turned fundamentalist preacher: She has taken to night ramblings through the woods to escape her husband’s bed, storing strange keepsakes in a mountain cavern. To Brodis, these are all the signs that Irenie—tiptoeing through the dark in her billowing white nightshirt—is practicing black magic.When Irenie slips back into bed with a kind of supernatural stealth, Brodis senses that a certain evil has entered his life, linked to the lady agent, or perhaps to other, more sinister forces.Working in the stylistic terrain of Amy Greene and Bonnie Jo Campbell, this mesmerizing and award-winning debut by Julia Franks is the story of a woman intrigued by the possibility of change, escape, and reproductive choice—stalked by a Bible-haunted man who fears his government and stakes his integrity upon an older way of life. As Brodis chases his demons, he brings about a final act of violence that shakes the entire valley. In this spellbinding Southern story, Franks bares the myths and mysteries that modernity can’t quite dispel.

    Layla James, a recent graduate and budding photographer, never knew anything about her father except that he named her for the iconic song by Eric Clapton. Her mother--steeped in a political activism that Layla rejects--kept their past shrouded in secrecy, and when she dies of cancer, she leaves only an enigmatic letter--the first in a series that will lead Layla through a cross-country network of '60s radicals and closer to the bombshell at the heart of her parents' past. As Layla makes her way from the East Coast to a commune in the California desert, she discovers more about friendship, love, forgiveness, and the personal repercussions of political activism than she could ever have imagined. A stirring and panoramic story, viewed through the lens of the next generation, this exceptional debut novel brings the gestalt of the '60s into focus and sheds new light on the era's legacy in the new millennium.From the Back Cover"Celine Keating's deftly plotted novel takes readers on a gripping journey along the underground railroad of post-'60s radicalism. . . . Every adult has to reinterpret the story of her childhood. Keating beautifully demonstrates the courage it takes for each of us to face that bittersweet truth." --LARRY DARK, Director of The Story Prize "A beautiful book--at once nostalgic and fresh--that will go straight to your heart and lodge there." --ALETHEA BLACK, author of I Knew You'd Be Lovely " An] emotional page-turner. Layla's coming to terms with her parents' dangerous activism is heart wrenching due to Keating's delightfully drawn characters. This novel also serves as a compelling lesson in our values and how drastically they've changed. It serves as a better history than any essay or screed." --SUSAN BRAUDY, author of Family Circle "As Layla James drives cross-country, following the cryptic directions of her late mother, she meets a wide and sharply drawn group of veteran radicals who all play a part in the search for her mysterious father. . . . Keating keeps the pace fast and the suspense high . . . You'll want to ride with her every mile of the way " --ROBERT HERSHON, editor of Hanging Loose Press "A triumph of political literature . . . as informative as it is impossible to put down." --MARNIE MUELLER, author of My Mother's Island "Evoked in beautiful prose and telling details . . . Layla] brings to life the complexity of family dynamics, with all its conflicts, dangers and rewards." --NAHID RACHLIN, author of Persian Girls: A Memoir

    Erik Reece’s grandfather was a Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher. He loved to hunt and fish and explore the Kentucky woods, but for him, existence on this earth was about denying the pleasures of this life in preparation for the next. Erik’s father was a Baptist minister, too. But at the age of thirty-three—not coincidentally, Jesus’ age when he was crucified— Erik’s father violently took his own life, and Erik ended up spending much of his childhood in the care of his grandparents. So, while Erik grew up with a conflicted relationship with Christianity, he also grew up with an acute awareness of a part of the country suffering ongoing economic, environmental, and even spiritual collapse. When he himself neared age thirty-three, he found unexpected comfort and guidance in his intellectual hero Thomas Jefferson’s famous Jefferson Bible, especially when he began to track similarities between it and the Zen-like message of the Gospel of Thomas. Inspired, he undertook what would become a spiritual and literary quest—to identify an “American gospel” coursing through the work of both great and forgotten American geniuses, from William Byrd to Walt Whitman to William James to Lynn Margulis. In synthesizing that gospel—one that prizes the pleasures and glories of this earth—Reece began to find a way to a spiritual and intellectual peace with his own American soul. The result of Reece’s journey is a deeply personal but also deeply thought out, inspiring, and stirring book, delivered almost like a secular sermon, about personal, political, and historical demons—and the geniuses we can and must call on to combat them.

    Raging storms and adversities hit the small band of travelers, and it all seems unrelenting.Relieved to finally arrive at the abandoned military post at Fort Worth, Texas, they begin the hard work of establishing a new home, including the difficult task of building schools and churches while attempting to civilize the community with manners.When trials follow them, they must decide to become true warriors of their hearts, minds, and souls—or fall to the sufferings of prairie life.Join the four women on a passage of friendship, love, and self-discovery as lives are mended around the quilting frame.

    Set in the apocalyptic atmosphere of the turn of this century, this engaging novel by the author of In Country tells the story of a young farm wife, living in rural Kentucky, who unintentionally creates a national sensation when she gives birth to the first recorded set of quintuplets in North America.

    It is based in part on her own courtship and introduction to the Kentucky mountain country. Here, Giles introduces Hod and Mary Pierce and begins her Appalachian trilogy. Hod Pierce, a boy not unlike Henry Giles, who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from the stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs also for wider horizons, for more education, and for th

    But when Steven spends their life savings on a cemetery plot, it's time for Maggie to take control.With her twenty-year high school reunion just around the corner and her long-lost high school boyfriend back in town, it's Maggie's turn to start turning heads. In the face of small-minded gossips, a surly family, and a meddling grandmother, Maggie must reach deep inside her Southern-housewife soul to become the woman she's always wanted to be.