A Cast of Characters and Other Stories: Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe Series 2006

Though the fifth installment of the Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe series is pocket-sized, there is nothing cute about the collection. Editor Brewer gathered 14 stories, essays and poems from a mostly male group of Southern writers, and the result is taut and unflinching. Howard Bahr's tense ""Coppers: 1939"" hovers between life and death: a dog chews on a man's entrails while he waits to die, pinned between two boxcars. In ""A Man"" by Pia Z. Ehrhardt, a 25-year-old girl is moved by the angry tears of her rapist. He responds to her forgiveness by fetching an ax to cut off her hand. Other stories are less bloody and bleak, but equally affecting. Frank Turner Hollon runs the New York City Marathon and tests his mental and physical endurance. Chip Livingston's essay about being contacted by a boy whose background and name are identical to the hero of a poem he wrote highlights the power of technology and its ability to connect writers to their most receptive and important audiences. The title story, by Rick Bragg, is about a 45-year-old man who endlessly hunts an elusive fish until he must admit that even catching it cannot change his fishing legacy: ""I would just be the bad fisherman who got lucky, once."" Each piece offers a unique version of the Southern past and a tantalizing glimpse into the future of Southern literature.