Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Eleven Stories

This colorful debut collection consists of 11 interlinked stories set in a fictitious Shenandoah Valley town between the early 1950s and late '70s. The stories exhibit an Appalachian Gothic vibe, and their outlandish, often violent plots draw on the antics of the local eccentrics. The book kicks off with ""The Vultures,"" in which George MacJenkins returns from vacation to find dozens of vultures have turned his home into their grotesque roost. Local reporter Rachel Stetson features in a couple stories, interviewing a religious snake handler in one, reporting on ""the town fool"" in the next. In ""The Builders,"" Tom Dorian, an African-American carpenter married to a woman from a white trash family, is chained to a bridge by bigoted locals and has a very strange encounter with Mary Anne Randolph, ""a haunted albino."" Elsewhere, the 1968 trial of two gay men for sodomy in ""The Botanist"" offers a few humorous moments. Neofotis smartly captures a sometimes creepy, sometimes beautiful corner of Americana.