In
the tradition of Joyce’s Dubliners, Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and the Southern grotesque, this
topographical cycle of 12 discrete but interrelated stories
explores the patterns of power that permeate the lives of more
than 30 characters in the mythological town of Elsburg, U.S.A.
Opening with the ill-fated life of a young faith-healing
preacher, including the portrait of a fundamentalist
octogenarian barber, and concluding with the struggle of an
eccentric centenarian physician who stills wants to practice his
profession, this cycle of narratives, told in a variety of
styles often reminiscent of Southern authors like Faulkner,
O’Connor, Porter, and Welty, exposes a vibrant and latent
phantasmagorical world that subtly intrigues, fascinates, and,
at times, startles the reader.