Lovesick

Four powerful, long stories constitute Driggers’s debut collection set in various periods in the small town of Morris, S.C., and though crimes are a common denominator, the crimes themselves are uncommon. In “Butcher, the Baker,” set in the 1930s, black felon George Butcher, a self-taught baker, partners with ambitious white Virginia Yeager to enter the white-only Mystic White Flour baking contest in Atlanta. The Bramble sisters, Freddie and Jewel, make a killing out of marriage, literally, until a pregnant, unmarried girl comes into their lives, in “The Brambles.” When Sandra Maxwell is unexpectedly widowed in “Sandra and the Snake Handlers,” she becomes obsessed with TV evangelist Shep Waters. Florist M.R. Vale, the eponymous narrator of “M.R. Vale,” is gay in a time and place not known for tolerance, but he manages to avoid trouble until he gets involved with rough mechanic Lonnie Flowers. Each plot line appears to lead to a predictable outcome, but Driggers consistently surprises. [em]Agent: Mitchell Waters, Curtis Brown. (Apr.) [/em]