Spencer Road: A Short Story Sequence - Tapa dura

Yet each year the surrounding fields yield less cotton and fewer cantaloupes. Some of the acreage is gradually sold off. The mother's disappointments deepen, as does her prickliness. The father grows more remote. The three children, meanwhile, enjoy their freedom in the country, but they, too, catch occasional glimpses of the accumulating losses.

Their stories tell of the pain brought on by the firing of a beloved cook, of furniture being divided among relatives, of the impact of a tragic death. There are smaller losses as well: the son, returning from a frog-gigging expedition, tears the interior of the family's brand-new Studebaker. Other stories tell of the fun of early-morning hunting, of the excitement of attending a prom party in town, of the daughter's secret flirting with a good-looking German prisoner of war. In one story, Bird, the cook, encounters an insensitive doctor who crowns her during an office visit with a bouquet of white camellias.

The stories reach into the 1950s. As the Spencer children meet or blunder through unstoppable changes, their voices grow stronger and more knowing. And, as rendered by Morris Smith in this remarkable fiction debut, they are voices that will linger with the reader long after the last page is turned.