Lydia Peelle

The Whiting Award-winning author of the story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing delivers her enchanting debut novel, set in 1916 Tennessee: a rich and rewarding tale of two flawed yet endearing grifters who pursue women, wealth, and a surprisingly valuable commodity for the troops in Europe-mules. A middle-aged Irish immigrant, Billy has a gift for illusion-making damaged objects look new. His companion, Charles, the smooth-tongued...

The narrator of "Shadow on a Weary Land" imagines the many lives that have been lived over the years on Brown's Ridge-from the teeming wildlife that once roamed the land to Jesse and Frank James, who settled there, to the farmers recently pushed out by the imminent rise of a housing development. These ghosts from the past haunt the narrator and his friends, a group of misfits who realize that their hardscrabble lives are intimately tied to a vanishing...

Two restless young girls in "Sweethearts of the Rodeo" live out their last summer of innocence, riding ponies recklessly and spying on their boss.

In "The Still Point", Lydia Peelle tells the story of a man stuck in the routine of life while traveling with a carnival.