A SHANNON RAVENEL BOOK
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

© 2004 by George Singleton. All rights reserved.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following magazines, where some of these stories first appeared under different titles and in different forms: Book, the Georgia Review, Shenandoah, New England Review, Atlanta magazine, Cincinnati Review, the Yalobusha Review, the Greensboro Review, and the Disclaimer. “Even Curs Hate Fruitcake” appeared as “Raise Children Here” in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2004.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.

E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-911-5