Universal Translator

Monday 15 December 2014

Heaven and Earth (the book)

“As proud Southerners, we don’t take kindly to being told by Yankees what we are doing wrong. It might be the wrongest of the wrong, but we prefer that you didn’t correct us. Don’t come down here and think you know what’s going on. Heck, even we don’t know what’s going on here half the time.” --from "The Squirrels of Sypsamulga"

A collection of mostly humorous short stories 
about the American South


[The wedding has started and two cows have died from being poisoned outside the church hall, which has been decorated for the wedding reception. Sam and Arliss have to figure out how to get rid of the dead cows. They decide to gut ‘em and cut ‘em to make them easier to remove, but a pocketknife is too small…]

      “It’s going to take forever to do this with a pocketknife, Arliss.”
      “Don’t Cousin Silas have one of them little chainsaws in his pick-up truck they use to cut branches off trees? I bet it’d slice right through that meat.”
      “He does but won’t a chainsaw, even a little one, be too noisy?”
Arliss thought for a second and said, “Well, I’m not that smart but I think that if the cow’s gutted and bled then we could pull him into the church hall to cut him up with it. I think that’d muffle the sound. They ain’t that noisy anyways. They’d never hear it with the doors shut way up there in the church sanctuary.”
      “Arliss, you’re brilliant. Now run go get that saw out of Silas’ truck!”
      Sam started to pull the gutted carcass up the steps of church hall. Arliss pulled up his pants and ran up the hill to the church parking lot. He rubbed his nose on his sleeve and smiled to himself because he was so brilliant.
---Excerpt from the story “Luther and Wynelle’s Wedding” from “Heaven and Earth”


Click here to purchase on Amazon
 (In the UK, click here.)

Click here to purchase at Barnes and Noble

Also available and Powells and other retailers.

ISBN: 9781500599027

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