The essential anthology of early short fiction by an American master Set primarily in Texas and Oklahoma during the Great Depression, these extraordinary stories display the unique blend of irony, nostalgia, and sharp-edged lyricism that established William Humphrey as one of America's finest chroniclers of small-town life. In "The Last Husband," a bright-eyed newlywed bears witness to the cynical intrigues of an older married couple. "The Human Fly" is the darkly humorous story of a young man's misguided attempt to create a new identity for himself in the rural Texas community where his name has become a running joke. "Quail for Mr. Forester" is the tender and precisely detailed portrait of a young Southern boy yearning for the glorious past he never knew. In "The Rainmaker," a self-proclaimed professor of the elements is tarred, feathered, and run out of town for raising a dust storm instead of delivering the promised downpour. He escapes across the...

"A big, rich, satisfying, old-fashioned hunk of a book . . . part comedy, part tragedy, and thoroughly satisfying." —Chicago Tribune Book World A Texas family as big and brash as their home state, the Renshaws are united by their fierce loyalty to one another and their ruthlessness in destroying anyone who threatens their interests. When the Renshaw matriarch, Edwina, takes to her deathbed, her ten children are summoned home to stand vigil. Past humiliations and long-simmering resentments soon boil to the surface—a son's forbidden love affair destroyed by his imperious mother, a daughter's dutiful attentions greeted with nothing but disdain. But the most painful wound of all is the absence of Kyle, Edwina's favorite son and the only member of the family to leave Texas. What drove him away, and can his siblings get him home in time to see his mother before she dies? As the ties that bind the indomitable Renshaws stretch...

From one of America's most acclaimed authors comes a masterful collection of bittersweet tales about the autumn of life In the exquisite title story, seventy-six-year-old Virginia Tyler will finally marry the love of her life—as soon as she finds the courage to leave her husband of almost fifty years. In "The Apple of Discord," a Hudson Valley farmer, heartsick that none of his three daughters or their husbands wants to keep the family orchard, commits an act of desperation."Vissi d'Arte" is the poignant story of a husband whose belief that his wife is destined to become a world-famous painter borders on the delirious. In "A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man," an aging writer realizes that the young reporter sent from the big-city newspaper to interview him is gathering material for his obituary. The lies he tells her are a delicious act of defiance. By turns tender, funny, and sad, September Song is William Humphrey at his most...

"Good writing is rare enough. Storytelling is an even rarer skill. A genuinely comic vision is beyond price. The Ordways has all three." —Time On the annual graveyard-working day in Clarksville, Texas, families come from all over East Texas to pay respects to their loved ones. The Ordways are one such clan, and in this eloquent and original novel, our narrator recounts the story of how he and his kin arrived in this magical land where the South meets the West. The tale begins with his great-grandfather, Thomas Ordway, who lost his sight at the Battle of Shiloh and vowed to quit Tennessee forever. He crossed the Red River into Texas and stopped on the edge of the featureless prairie, a landscape too mystifying even for a sightless man. Years later, the narrator's grandfather, Sam Ordway, was forced to leave the forest behind when his three-year-old son, Ned, was kidnapped by a neighbor. Sam scoured the vast state of Texas in search...

A father bravely confronts anunthinkable tragedyin William Humphrey's most heart-wrenching novel In the aftermath of his son's suicide, Ben Curtis returns to the upstate New York fishing lodge that holds some of his happiest memories. It has been two years since his last visit, and Ben—thirty pounds lighter, his dark hair turned white—is barely recognizable to people who have fished alongside him for twenty summers. For the first time in all those years, he has made the trip alone. Over the course of the weekend, as Ben tramps through the forest and relearns the secrets of catching trout, he recalls the joys of the past and reckons with the grim reality of the present. Anthony, a Princeton freshman who inherited his father's love of the outdoors, is gone. So too is the man he was named after: Tony Thayer, Ben's best friend and former fishing companion. And Ben has no idea where his wife, Cathy, might be. In the wake of...

Finalist for the National Book Award: The mesmerizing saga of a Texas family torn apart by passion and pride Twelve years after Hannah Hunnicutt was committed to a Dallas asylum, her body is brought home to northeast Texas to be buried alongside those of her husband and son. Etched on all three gravestones is the same date of death: May 28, 1939. Home from the Hill is the story of that tragic day and the dramatic events leading up to it. The biggest landowner in the county, Captain Wade Hunnicutt was a charismatic war hero whose legendary hunting skills extended to the wives of his friends and neighbors. Humiliated by her husband's philandering, Hannah grew to despise Captain Wade but was too proud to ask for a divorce; instead, she devoted herself to her only child. Torn between his mother's adoration and an overwhelming need to win his father's approval, Theron tried to become his own man. And he might have succeeded if he hadn't fallen...

"A novel every American should be required to read." —Los Angeles Times William Humphrey brings a shameful chapter in US history—the removal of the Cherokee nation along the Trail of Tears—to vivid life in his powerful final novel. Twelve-year-old Amos Ferguson is a blond, blue-eyed boy of mixed Cherokee and Scottish heritage, the son of a physician and the grandson of a gentleman farmer. Despite wealth and education, however, the family has no recourse when a drifter forges a bill of sale to their plantation: Georgia state law forbids anyone with Native American blood from testifying in court. Amos and his grandparents are relocated to a squalid internment camp and forced to join their tribe in a long and brutal march to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Along the way, the doctor's son tends to the sick as thousands perish from disease, starvation, and exhaustion. In the Republic of Texas, he bears witness to the...