Dead Mediums — Dan Leach

With the dark determination of Flannery O'Connor, the inventive urgency of Haruki Murakami, and an insight and wit all his own, Leach conjures the American South with all its beauty, magic, tragedy, grace, and violence. Young boys make a dangerous deal with the vagrant who sleeps in the construction site at the edge of a trailer park. A wizard's cures bring bizarre side effects. Trying to win back his girlfriend, a penitent man crawls through the streets like a dog, plunging his college town into chaos. The stories in Dead Mediums are electrifying, gritty, compelling, and profound.