| Title |
Original Publication Details |
First Line |
| From the Bottom Up |
The Georgia Review, Spring 1981 |
“Old Blackburn’s granddaughter, Lorraine, sat on the edge of the bathtub and thumped the heels of her patent-leather shoes against the porcelain sides.” |
| Mildred Motley and the Son of a Bitch |
Skyline, Winter 1981 |
“There were three things Mildred Motley Plonk needed: a decent man, a fortune, and a son of a bitch to kill.” |
| The Raising |
|
“Of the eight matrons perched like pigeons around two identical card tables, Mrs. Bertram Eastman was the lone childless woman.” |
| The Snipe Hunters |
|
“On a map the state of Tennessee is a rough parallelogram.” |
| Invictus |
The Southern Review, Spring 1979 |
“Mamaw’s white face broke out of the darkness and hovered like a tear over Leota’s eyes.” |
| South of the Border |
|
“In a car, headed point-blank down an interstate, there is a sanity akin to recurring dreams: you feel as if every moment has been lived and will be lived exactly according to plan.” |
| Broken Mirrors |
Mademoiselle, October 1979 |
“Through the sheer living room curtains, across the leaf-strewn yard, Oredia could see the pickup truck.” |
| The Professors |
|
“I have yet to understand it.” |
| The Wellest Day |
|
“By one in the afternoon most of the family was there.” |
| Country Blues for Melissa |
|
“One night, twenty years ago and in the middle of one of the few really blizzard-like storms that pounce on the mountains of East Tennessee, I awoke from a strange dream—about disembodied but kind hearts, oddly enough, throwing bars of music at me—and felt a very cold draft on my face.” |
Leigh Allison Wilson 