Route 12

Route 12 is two haunting novellas set in Appalachia in the seventies and eighties. These are stories of people down on their luck--a girl crippled by a bad dose of polio vaccine, a young pregnant woman with no one to turn to, a mother desperate for cash who makes a terrible mistake. In this debut book from Marietta Miles, God's country is as corrupt as any place on earth and trusting anyone is a dangerous proposition.

"Miles rolls on instinct infused with raw talent, utilizing a palate of emotion to repaint what we thought was southern noir, turning it into something new, something poignant, something entirely hers." --Tom Pitts, author of Hustle and Knuckleball

"Marietta Miles excels at snapshots—behind the walls of the old farmhouses you pass on the beaten country roads. These are the places we don’t think about, with their rickety fences and sun-beaten paint jobs, the dirty kid in overalls on the porch. But perhaps we should. Because far from the glitz and glamour of the city, Miles shines a far more glaring light: the one on what it means to be human, desperate to be heard, seen, loved. These are the stories of the forgotten, the lost, the damned Americans." -- Joe Clifford, Lamentation and December Boys