The Greats of Cuttercane

The Greats of Cuttercane
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2011
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0881462497

When Asa Holbrook Staggs stepped into the cold-water spring that would later bear his name, he was drunk. The date was November 18, 1914. He pulled himself from the water, sober, cold and converted to a new life in the Lord. And thus began the legend of Asa¿s Spring, a pool indiscriminately dispensing favoritism to those who believed (or wondered about) the curative power of its water. These are stories of people born in Cuttercane, Georgia, the place of Asa¿s Spring, and who earned minor celebrity from the townsfolk¿s highest praise: ¿He (she) is something else, ain¿t he (she)?¿ The ¿something else¿ is what a Southerner might call a catchall phrase, for it can apply to saint and sinner alike. It means exactly what it implies: the person referenced has made a name for him (her) self in some manner ¿ Asa, the drunk, becoming a war hero; the reigning heavyweight lard watermelon champion and Indian terror, Newell Proudfoot, in a grudge match against the Prichard twins; Felton Eugene Weaver¿s rise from whiskey runner to Hollywood movie fame; Elmo Parker and Monroe Dawson in a showdown baseball game between the Claybank Textile Tigers and the Jefferson Bluejays; and, last, the stunning Mattie Mae Blair¿s career as the strip-tease artist, Princess Salome. Written in the edged-in-humor style of caricature, these stories are shared daily in cafes and other gathering spots in rural communities in the South. It is a practice embedded in the culture, and all it takes for a casual mention to become a tall tale is one storyteller trying to outdo another. If you find yourself in the company of such men and women, pause nearby and eavesdrop. When the snickering turns into a cackle, you will know that someone has been elevated to being ¿something else.¿

Sadly Troubled History

Sadly Troubled History
Author: John C. Weaver
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0773576827

More people die by suicide each year than by homicide, wars, and terrorist attacks combined. Witnesses and survivors are left perplexed and troubled. Doctors, clinical psychologists, and social workers try to deal with it through their professional routines; sociologists and psychiatrists attempt to provide theoretical explanations of it. In a study of nearly 7000 suicides from 1900 to 1950 in New Zealand and Queensland, Australia, John Weaver documents the challenges that ordinary people experienced during turbulent times and, using witnesses' testimony, death bed statements, and suicide notes, reconstructs individuals' thoughts as they decide whether to endure their suffering. Bridging social and medical history, Weaver presents an intellectual and political history of suicide studies, a revealing construction and deconstruction of suicide rates, a discussion of gender, life stages, and socio-economic circumstances in relation to suicide patterns, reflections on reasoning processes and intent, and society's reactions to suicide, including medical intervention. A Sadly Troubled History marshals thousands of suicide inquests, replete with observations on the anxieties of unemployment, the heartbreak of romantic disappointment, the pain of domestic turmoil, and the torments of mental illness, to demonstrate that history - although, like biochemistry, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, reliant on remarkable yet imperfect information - can contribute to a better understanding of the suicidal act and its motives.

Bogmeadow's Wish

Bogmeadow's Wish
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2011
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0881462306

When Cooper Coghlan arrives in Ireland with his grandfather's remains he has one instruction: let my ashes blow in the wind. You'll know the place when you come to it. I'll be there, telling you. Mesmerized by his romantic vision of Ireland, Cooper begins his search with the unknowing help of friends and an Irish stranger named Kathleen

Wildlife Conservation in Africa

Wildlife Conservation in Africa
Author: S.S. Ajayi
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2019-05-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128169621

Wildlife Conservation in Africa: A Scientific Approach presents comprehensive management strategies for the consumptive and non-consumptive utilization of wildlife across Sub-Saharan Africa. It describes African economies that are currently dependent on wildlife resources and prescribes strategies for conserving biodiversity in both forests and animals in ecosystems across the continent. The book covers the history and current status of how Africa's culture, traditions, healthcare and food sources are woven intricately around the local wildlife and resources. It is a necessary resource for researchers and practitioners in wildlife and ecological conservation, but is also useful for administrators and managers of protected areas.

Shadow Song

Shadow Song
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2010-03-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 143912213X

In the summer of 1955, Madison Lee "Bobo" Murphy was a waiter at the Catskills' Pine Hill Inn. A rural Southerner, he had never heard the word meshugge until Avrum Feldman -- a retired New York City furrier -- became his unlikely friend. For Bobo, nothing about that special time and place ever lost its glow: Avrum's obsession with the haunting voice of a famous opera diva, music that no one else could hear; the exotic mingling of Yiddish and German in the dining room; and the girl he met and loved. In everyone's life, Avrum claimed, there is one grand, undeniable moment that never stops mattering. For Bobo, it was his first glimpse of beautiful Amy Lourie. But, for a wealthy Jewish girl and a Georgia farm boy, the summer had to end, leaving Bobo with the pain of lost love. Nearly forty years later, his children grown and marriage comfortably routine, Bobo comes north once more; there, amidst the haunting hints of Amy's presence, she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The barriers between them are different now. But mysteriously, miraculously, Bobo reawakens the dream of a love larger than himself....

The Year the Lights Came On

The Year the Lights Came On
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2012-08-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1611874238

Revolving around the electrification of rural northeast Georgia shortly after the end of World War II, the novel has become a classic coming-of-age story. Kay, now an acclaimed writer with an international following, has reread the novel with the eyes of a seasoned storyteller. Cutting here and adding there, Kay has enriched an already highly comical and poignant work.

Dark Thirty

Dark Thirty
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1949135462

In the sleepy town of Tickenaley, Georgia, they call the thirty minutes between day and night Dark Thirty. The memory of daylight lingers, but falling darkness brings with it haze, change and uncertainty. One day at Dark Thirty, Jesse Wade, in high spirits, carrying a birthday gift for his beloved grandson, returns home to a scene of unspeakable horror. His entire family—wife, children, grandchild—have been savagely slain. In one slashing moment, the life of this decent, loving, home-rooted man is torn apart forever. Not since In Cold Blood has a book probed so deeply and so powerfully into the human drama that a senseless act of savagery leaves in its wake—the agony of Jesse Wade, the panic of the townspeople, the burden of the lawyers who must defend the killers, and the encroachment of the news media, exploiting it all. As the story unfolds, Terry Kay also dramatically brings to light the complex social issues we all face in a violent time: justice vs. vengeance, the failings of our legal system, capital punishment. In this beautifully written, deeply felt novel, Terry Kay chillingly juxtaposes the pastoral beauty of Appalachia and the traditional values of small-town America with the spreading stain of evil that threatens us all. “Terry Kay plunges deeply into the complex and maddening question of justice and emerges with a work whose qualities are those of true art: the capacity to remain in the reader’s mind, vexing him, illuminating him, and making him part of a human situation he cannot ignore.” —James Dickey, author of Deliverance

The Valley of Light

The Valley of Light
Author: Terry Kay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2010-03-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1439122032

A lyrical and poignant novel from one of America's greatest storytellers, the author of To Dance with the White Dog. On a sunny summer day in 1948, Noah Locke arrives in Bowerstown, a small North Carolina community bordered by lakes and set deep in the Valley of Light. A quiet, simple man and a war veteran, Noah has a mystical gift for fishing, yet he remains haunted by the war and by the terrible scenes he witnessed when his infantry unit liberated Dachau. His wandering—doing odd jobs and catching fish for sale or trade—is both an escape from his past and a search for a place to call home. In the valley, Noah is initially treated with amusement by the locals he meets at Taylor Bowers's general store—until he begins fishing. Once they see his almost magical skills, however, he becomes the talk of the valley and is urged to stay long enough to participate in the annual school fishing contest. He agrees, accepting a job offer by Taylor to paint his store when he isn't filling orders for fish. He finds lodging in an abandoned shack by a small lake the locals call the Lake of Grief and, also, the Lake of No Fish, because they think all the fish have disappeared. Noah knows they are wrong. Beneath the water is a warrior bass waiting to test Noah's gift. In the way that innocence creates powerful events, Noah meets Eleanor Cunningham, a young widow whose husband supposedly killed himself after returning home from the war. Over the course of a week, Noah will be led into the secret lives of the residents of the Valley of Light, will join them as they mourn a tragedy, and will experience a miracle that will guide him home at last. Luminous, memorable, and deeply moving, The Valley of Light is the finest work to date from a brilliant storyteller.