There were depths of fury inside me that felt strange and powerful; keeping them to myself gave my life a mysterious secrecy that felt like womanhood. – Rachael Meade
Author Debra Leigh Scott’s short story collection Other Likely Stories is unquestionably Southern. More than just a matter of being set in the South, it’s the pace of the prose and sensibilities of its speakers that distinctly marks each offering as something that could take place only in the South.
Though each stands on its own, the stories are loosely inter-connected by way of three recurring characters, sisters Rachael and Midgy Meade and their cousin, Marlena Galloway. Whether taking center stage in a story alone or all showing up together, the nine stories that make up the collection explore the lives of the three over a 20 year period between 1955-1975.
Every story in the collection was an enjoyable read, but there were three in particular that stood out to me.
“Memorial Day” takes place over a scant 24 hour period in May of 1973 and finds Rachel, Midgy and Marlena stopping at a campground off the beaten path on the outskirts of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. On their way to meet up with Midgy’s vagabond musician boyfriend, the young women are footloose and fancy-free, reveling in the freedom of their adventure. An encounter with an alcohol fueled group of ex-soldiers recently back from Vietnam, however, leads to a life-altering event that forever binds them with a terrible secret.
“A Fire Goeth Before Him” starts out odd, and quickly veers into straight up Southern Gothic. Marlena, freshly married and with a baby on the way, has already named her unborn son Ammon, which means “the hidden.” Never the most tightly wrapped to begin with, Marlena believes she has special powers and that Ammon is destined for greatness: “On the day of his birth, there are special forecasts of weather never before seen. Storms of great magnitude are predicted, with sun blazes that will ignite the trees. But this child is born instead, and so the world is saved.” We are forced to watch as Marlena slowly descends into a madness driven by her need to “prepare” Ammon, a preparation that you just know can’t possibly end well.
“A Kind of Heaven” is, for my money, the most powerful story in the collection. Living in off-post housing outside of Fort Bragg while their father is off in some strange place called Vietnam, twelve year old Rachel and younger sister Midgy have settled into a boring routine of daily existence with their mother. The unexpected arrival of their Grandmother on the doorstep one wintry morning in late 1962 turns the lives of everyone in the Meade home, especially Rachel, on its ear.
Nana Galloway, it seems, has a secret. One she won’t share with either Rachel’s mother or grandfather, who shows up shortly
Though probably most well-known to the casual reader for his Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series, Lawrence Block also has a long tradition of writing short stories (his collection Enough Rope contains 83 of them), and another of his well known characters, the hitman Keller, originated as an ongoing short story feature in Playboy Magazine.
If you are unlucky enough to have known the dark as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for darkness is a movable feast. – Adam Lee
Over the years, when the most easily identified suspect had been arrested with no further investigation for any others, Tempe had investigated murders on her own time, sometimes at the peril of her job or even her life, until she ferreted out the truth and the guilty party.
To be effective the punishment has to be so severe as to be frightening, ten times more frightening than whatever else is driving your actions. Citizens can’t abide that level of punishment, and I understand now why the secret has been so well guarded. – Michael O’Connor
Today I am pleased to welcome guest blogger Kathryn Casey, author of the Sarah Armstrong series. 
After thirty-plus years as a policeman I thought I knew a little about people, and I did. But I knew nothing about retired people, and now I was surrounded by them. – Eddie Perlmutter
“There’s no need to mourn the dead. They have no worries. They can’t hurt anyone. They have no deadlines or commitments weighing them down. Don’t mourn the dead. Mourn the living.” – Walter Bendix.
A few weeks ago I was flattered to be contacted by Cathy from 
