Lovesick
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Spanning the 1930s to the present day, James Driggers' evocative Southern Gothic collection introduces the intriguing inhabitants of Morris, South Carolina--a small town where a mix of rich, poor, and in-between co-exist, grappling with desire, ambition, hope, and loneliness. . .
Amid a landscaped dotted with farms, trailers, and genteel homes, there lives a talented baker who desperately needs to win a cooking contest but must team up with a down-on-her-heels society matron to do it. . .the Bramble sisters, whose husbands tend to be short-lived and wealthy, but whose latest prospect arrives with complications. . .a widow who becomes dangerously obsessed with a snake-charming televangelist. . .and a lonely florist who will do anything for the sake of a ruthless local mechanic.
With wit and insight lurking beneath a palpable air of menace, James Driggers' debut is a tautly plotted, evocative exploration of love--and all that we do in its name. . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Four powerful, long stories constitute Driggers's debut collection set in various periods in the small town of Morris, S.C., and though crimes are a common denominator, the crimes themselves are uncommon. In "Butcher, the Baker," set in the 1930s, black felon George Butcher, a self-taught baker, partners with ambitious white Virginia Yeager to enter the white-only Mystic White Flour baking contest in Atlanta. The Bramble sisters, Freddie and Jewel, make a killing out of marriage, literally, until a pregnant, unmarried girl comes into their lives, in "The Brambles." When Sandra Maxwell is unexpectedly widowed in "Sandra and the Snake Handlers," she becomes obsessed with TV evangelist Shep Waters. Florist M.R. Vale, the eponymous narrator of "M.R. Vale," is gay in a time and place not known for tolerance, but he manages to avoid trouble until he gets involved with rough mechanic Lonnie Flowers. Each plot line appears to lead to a predictable outcome, but Driggers consistently surprises.
