Publisher's Synopsis
Review from the Jacksonville Florida "Times-Union" IF YOU LIKE YOUR SHORT STORIES SOUTHERN STYLE, READ ON North Carolina bred Barnes' "Porch Stories" are Southern jewels that would glitter in any locale. Those of us of an age have experienced similar situation; The loss of a loved one, remembering our first (and sometimes last) hunting trip or facing a deadly disease, but Barnes takes them to another level, infusing them with a smokey tone that is distinctly his. Although several of the stores are award winners, the most striking is one with the most homely title. "Bookmobile" an intense and revealing bit about sharecropers, invokes images that could have been captured by Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans or James Agee. Viewed throught a young mother's eyes, life on a poor farm has its disadvantages, but moving to town may not be any better. ...Barnes writes with the tint of another era. By Tim O'Connell A collection of stories of transition. Some of the stories depict the changes occurring in the South during the transition from rural to a more urban region in the 1950s and 1960s. There are also stories that depict the transition from childhood to adult, from adult to dependency, and from life to the final days. All of the stories are rooted in what makes the people of the South, Southern. Check out Fightin' the Boogeyman (Surviving Vietnam and PTSD) and Cracker Noir: The Murdered Mayor (PI Mystery of FBI man over his head in a small Souhern Town) by the same author.
