Strange events haunt the lives of the intrepid Southern characters in the second collection (after Her Kind of Want
) from Alabama native Davis. The title story concerns the parents of a fragile, gifted child obsessed with drawing antiquated war scenes and mayhem perhaps gleaned from a past life—a child so unlike the football-throwing boy the father had hoped for that he secretly ponders doing away with the boy. The troubled teen protagonist of "Lily, Love" is matched with a lonely elderly man sick with emphysema in a community outreach program, and the two find their senses of alienation nicely compatible. "Giving Up the Ghost," tracks the emotional ramifications of witnessing a car accident on a young couple still reeling from the miscarriage of their baby. Frank, the husband, held the hand of the dying accident victim, an intimacy he is hesitant to share with his wife. "Pilgrimage in Georgia" is a terrific writerly sendup about a novelist who moves to a small Southern town in order to gain the authenticity he lacks, only to be tormented by the productivity of a young writer as much a hack as he is. Davis creates magnificently conflicted characters with low-key stylistic panache. (July)
