These 14 monologues are not so much short stories as Robert Browning–like soliloquies. In them, poet (Split the Lark
) and Shenandoah
editor Smith shows history dominating current Southern life. An obsessed Civil War re-enactor follows the bidding of the ghost of Stonewall Jackson, stealing the taxidermied remains of his horse in "Little Sorrel." Sybil Mildred Clemm Legrad Pascal, a docent at Lee Chapel of Washington and Lee University (the Virginia school where Shenandoah
is based), offers her own views of the general's life. In the title story, a short ukelele player, Parham "Uke" Rivers, tells his eventful life story, which involves some dirty business with his driver and nurse-lover Sunny (whose "hospital costume in the bedroom was a special treat"), but which centers on his love for the lovely, departed Stella. Smith does a credible job with his various players' down-home diction, but their tics and concerns never coalesce into character, standing out like items in a curio shop. (Oct.)
