Snake Doctor and Other Stories

Book excerpt: A collection of stories ranging in time from the 1940’s to present and taking place in locales such as Memphis, Tennessee; Sheffield, Alabama; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and various other rural locations in the South. The stories chronicle the lives, life events, and conflicts of southern characters including the poor and rural; high school and college students; the elderly; children; the educated and uneducated; businesspeople; teachers and the working class. A rich thread of southern heritage, culture, and the human condition runs throughout the collection and brings to life the character’s motivations, mannerisms, eccentricities, persistence and resilience. Characters such as Uncle Lum; Uncle Caleb and Aunt Martha; Mitchell Murphy and Marsha Butler; Pack Jordan and Granville Graves; Nancy and Jack; Walter and Edna; and Paul and Davey evoke the intimate expanse of history, legend, truth, desperation, and textures of place: Southern places, Southern people, Southern conflicts and Southern relationships.