Clare and the Country People and Other Stories

CLARE AND THE COUNTRY PEOPLE AND OTHER STORIES features Tales of Lower Appalachia and traces the history of the fictional Waldentown from its post-Civil War days through the new century. The town has its first legal hanging, house fires that cause one couple to retreat to a remote community to rebuild. Burley's residents had never even seen a chocolate cake. Clare Reardon is the "town girl" who has to learn to cope: with a husband she nurses during the 1917 flu epidemic, with a brother who returns from the Great War missing both legs to trench disease. (395 pages; 125,000 words) The collection features vignettes (short shorts), short stories, novellas, and a short novel.