A Fine Dark Line (Lansdale, Joe R)

During a sweltering East Texas summer, 13-year-old Stanley Mitchel Jr. begins a journey of awakening. His family runs the town#x2019;s drive-in movie theater,#x00a0;where Stanley spends his time helping out, reading ten-cent comics, playing with his dog Nub and generally living a boy#x2019;s life, circa 1958. When Stanley discovers a cache of old love-letters and starts to unravel a local mystery, however, he finds himself confronting secrets of ghosts, women, sex, race and his own courage. As he tells it, #x201c;I felt as if something living inside of me had been stolen, taken away and mistreated, then returned without all of its legs.#x201d; Ultimately, it#x2019;s a story about taking a clear-eyed look behind the veil and acknowledging the truth of things, without succumbing to them.