Brier country

the long version

"In Brier Country, Elaine Fowler Palencia returns to Blue Valley, the fictional locale in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky that is the focus of her Small Caucasian Woman. Reuniting readers with characters from her first collection, Palencia continues to map her uniquely poignant territory in these sixteen new stories.". "A criminal on the lam in "Waiting for Snow" tries to make up for past transgressions even as the police are closing in. Years later, in "Emus," the retired cop who was part of the chase clears his own conscience. In "Guard Your Man," a high school physical-education teacher works to bring back women's basketball, which was outlawed for forty years in Kentucky. Through the eyes and minds of these various characters, we learn that people in Blue Valley are far more engaging and complex than they originally appear to be." "Throughout these new tales, the super-natural realm hovers behind the curtain of daily life, as in the stories of a nurse who performs a secret function in a city hospital, the eerie automobile journey of an aging salesman making his last trip, and the power of a grouping of trees known as the Three Graces."--BOOK JACKET.