Speer Morgan shares his powerful memories through short fiction that moves from the sloughs of mid-Arkansas to the fifth floor of a wholesale hardware company that overlooks Indian Territory, to a house haunted by a bad cat, to the living room of a woman suffering the worst headache of her life, to a sewage pond where two good ole boys are hunting for frogs. The contemporary freestyle narration Morgan uses is suspenseful, humorous, natural, and conversational. In some of the tales he weaves fantasy into reality; in others he captures the cruelty of life’s underside.

Morgan grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, across the river from what is now Oklahoma but was once Indian Territory, home of the Five Civilized Tribes. For generations his mother’s family owned a hardware store across the street from the courthouse of the hanging judge, Isaac C. Parker. From early childhood on, Morgan absorbed Indian lore and tradition, which are retold in some of these stories. The moods and forms of Morgan’s stories vary, but in each one of the six stories he is on the path of fine connections.

Stories included:

The Oklahoma and Western

The Bad Cat

Jack Woman Killer

Momma and the Moonman

Frog Gig

The Bullet