The Last Days of Dogtown

THE COURTSHIP of Oliver Younger and Polly Boynton began on the day he brought John Stanwood to yank out two of Tammy’s rotten teeth. Oliver was fourteen at the time, and though he’d gotten his height, his voice was still changing and he was far too shy to look Polly square in the eye as she stood, half hidden, in the doorway of her father’s house. She

you got a sad story, ruth,' mimba said. 'but not sad-sad. you here with me and cato and all us together now. you have a happy-sad story. best you can get in this life is happy-sad. but you always gotta remember your own mama that birthed you. even though you only got a crumb of her story, you still got to say her name out loud. you always honor your dead, else you get trouble from them, sure.

He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul,” said Sammy, trying to sound menacing and angelic at the same time.

Mimba had been right about white people. The best thing was to treat them like ghosts and cannibals, not to be trusted. But sometimes, a white ghost would look at you straight on, with a full smile, eye to eye. The smile of the eye was the secret, Mimba had taught her. You had to be careful always, but every now and again you could act as though they had souls, too. Easter was one like that.

Perhaps it was just the fact of his suicide that gnawed at her. To choose death seemed a terrible insult to everyone who carried on with the lonely business of living. As

One night, alone in her Dogtown bed, Judy finally admitted to herself that she had been in love with Cornelius. "In love" precisely as it was described in the novels and poems she had read with Martha; love as a kind of sweet madness that colored everything. Judy had been shocked that strangers across the ocean could describe the workings of her Yankee heart: the preoccupation and yearning, the soaring happiness and keen appreciation of a man's hidden qualities, the sublime meeting of souls. And yet, there was never a mention of the sort of union she'd shared with Cornelius, the longing and fulfillment of the flesh, that could transform two bodies into one.

Reverend Hartshorn’s face had puckered into a scowl. “This, er, passionate experience of the divine to which you lay claim is not necessarily evidence of salvation,” he said, choosing his words carefully. According to his theology, election was an absolute mystery; however, the notion that this foul-smelling lout could lay claim to revelation seemed monstrous. “The

Please, let me explain why I have spoken about things that should never be discussed, and which I will never mention again. “Martha

Ruth had come so far and lived so lonely only to learn that she was the daughter of a rapist and a murderer. She was half-sister to a smug fool who would probably have used Phoebe as ill as his father, had he been given the chance.

He’d been back to Mrs. Stanley’s house only three times in the years since Stanwood had chased him out.

Martha could not bear to witness the way her once-pretty features decayed from month to month, but Judy was fascinated by the alterations in her appearance. She

Blood pounded in Ruth’s ears. She had never felt weaker or more confused. This was the moment she’d been living for, but the only thought she could muster was that her mother had not been Phyllis, as she’d been told, but Phoebe. The