Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter

Meditations, Magic, and Manslaughter represents some of the best new work of Gregory Alan Norton whose previous works were well reviewed. This novella spans both literary, historical, and occult fiction. The narrative opens in 1918 in southwestern Indiana where the French Vincennois community undergoes daily struggle against mainstream, rural, anti-immigrant culture from that era. A coal miner accidentally kills a well connected hillbilly and is put on trial for manslaughter. The French miner calls on community help including a labor organizer friend from Chicago. The organizer is employed as a bookbinder, and he brings a book on Meditations and Magic to help calm down the miner while awaiting trial. That's when the story starts to get spooky with robots. And did we mention the love story between the daughter of a French lawyer and another member of the Vincennois community?