In the tradition of Joyce's Dubliners Anderson's Winesburg Ohio and the Southern grotesque
this topographical cycle of twelve discrete but interrelated short stories explores the
patterns of power that permeate the lives of more than thirty characters in the mythological
town of Elsburg U.S.A. Opening with the ill-fated life of a young faith-healing preacher
including the portrait of a fundamentalist octogenarian barber and concluding with the
struggle of an eccentric centenarian physician who stills wants to practice his profession
this cycle of narratives told in a variety of styles often reminiscent of Southern authors
like Faulkner O'Connor Porter and Welty exposes a vibrant and latent phantasmagorical world
that subtly intrigues fascinates and at times startles the reader.
