One Day in the Life of a Born Again Loser and Other Stories

A prize-winning fiction writer and current poet laureate of Alabama, Norris (The Christmas Wife) offers up nine stories, many resplendent with traditional Southern styles and themes, but most transcending the boundaries of regionalism, through powerful symbolism, a canny and touching understanding of human frailty and uproariously funny moments. ""The Flying Hawk"" is an uproarious account of a spunky old librarian taking a reluctant high school boy on a quest for the sight of a famous historic inn. ""[T]he hounds came from under a bush and jumped all over the side of the truck. Miss Pott's lips were set in a smile, as if she enjoyed a good barking at."" In the emotionally crushing ""The Bower-Bird,"" Will Geer, a Vietnam vet at loose ends, tries to contact an old army buddy, only to be caught in a web of deception and desperation when a strange, lonely woman posing as the friend's sister informs Will that his friend is dead. ""Tutankhamen Calhoun"" tells of a dying mill owner who tries to outwit his scavenging relatives with the help of a charlatan minister who may well be the Devil. The least interesting entry is ""The Great and Small,"" a predictable fable about a little girl's power of prayer. In the title story, Theron Estes returns from a 90-day jail sentence to find his two young daughters abandoned and a farewell note from his wife: ""I had enuff its your turn."" Theron tries his best, but unemployed and broke, his bizarre scheme to obtain a Christmas dinner for the girls flops with bathetic humor. These are good country people who would make Flannery O'Connor proud, and Norris makes them bitterly, or hilariously, real with her comic genius, emotional depth and elegant, direct prose. (June)