This book of short stories follows two young brothers and their musically talented
cousins around the country town of Bennetts Crossroads from the 1940s to the
present. One brother graduates college, the other goes to work in the local cotton
mill. After Odell, the younger, hears a call to preach, a rift grows between them
until they are estranged for twenty years.
Raunchy music, Burl Thompson's moonshine, and his seven uninhibited daughters,
make for hilarious hijinks and leads one cousin to the cusp of fame but later, to
bittersweet disappointment and tragedy. Another cousin, nicknamed Uncle Flop
because of his big ears, is haunted by PTSD. Following a hitch in Viet Nam,
Uncle Flop marries one of the " Thompson girls", spends seven years in prison for a
"Shooting at the Buffalo River Bridge" (Chapter 8) then disappears from Bennett
County for two decades to avoid incarceration after another shooting.
Attempting to reconcile their differences, the two 70-year-old brothers camp out for
a weekend on the old farm where they grew up. Sparks fly as they hammer away at
each other's wisdom on the crucial problems facing modern man: Truth, evil, war,
the environment, and, of course, religion. Before the camping trip is over, they reach
a truce, of sorts, and are able to play music together for the first time since their
youth - which leads to an ending that warms the heart.
This is not a children's book. Beginning with Chapter 7, several stories deal with
adult situations that may include sexual content.
As a fiction writer, Herman Myrick has one goal: To create believable and entertaining
literary stories that are true-to-life and worthy of the readers' time.
He wrote his first story in 1963 as a correspondence course assignment while
working the night shift in a textile mill. Since then, he has spent countless hours
studying writing at community colleges, at conferences and workshops, while always
working a full-time job. That first story, " The Dry Spell" was later published in a
college magazine.
He was born near Biscoe, North Carolina in 1941 and grew up as one of eight
children on a one-horse farm six miles from the nearest town. He attended Biscoe
High School and Presbyterian Junior College, for one year.
Other books by Herman Myrick:
dispatches from the still small voice (book 1)
The Diary of a Man Who Studied War
