A Small Profit Is Better Than A

Don't Love Anything That Can Be Taken Away.

John Lane Has Long Been Recognized As One Of The South's Finest Poets And Memoirists. This Debut Establishes Him As One Of Our Finest Novelists As Well. His Poet's Eye For Detail Seamlessly Merges With A Born Storyteller's Gift For Narrative. Fate Moreland's Widow Gives Voice To Those Who Endured One Of The Most Painful And Neglected Chapters In American History.

I Usually Do At Least A Dozen Drafts And Progressively Make More-conscious Decisions. Because I've Always Believed Stories Are Closer To Poems Than Novels, I Spend A Lot Of Time On The Story's Larger Rhythms, Such As Sentence And Paragraph Length, Placement Of Flashbacks And Dialogue.

The Woman Doesn't Look Up. It's As If She's Deaf. Maybe She Is. Maybe She's Like The Cambodian Women I've Read About, The Ones Who Witnessed So Many Atrocities That They Have Willed Themselves Blind. Maybe That's What You Have To Do Sometimes To Survive. You Kill Off Part Of Yourself, Your Hearing Or Eyesight, Your Capacity For Hope.

I Think Writing A Poem Is Like Being A Greyhound. Writing A Novel Is Like Being A Mule. You Go Up One Long Row, Then Down Another, And Try Not To Look Up Too Often To See How Far You Still Have To Go.