Sweet Hollow

the long version

Sweet Hollow tells of life in the hills of Appalachia some fifty years ago, a primal world of craggy hills and tangled forests where good and evil, charity and malice exist in their purest forms. If the pleasures of the men, women, and children in these seven stories are simple, the life and misfortunes that beset them are equally forthright and undiluted. There is beauty in the ridges and ponds, and grace in the flights of birds overhead, but nature also bestows lessons of cruelty and can, without warning, turn tormentor. There is magic and holiness in these hills, but there is also witchcraft and the hoofprint of the devil.