Men in Midnight Bloom

Presenting the land and life of his native West Virginia, Timothy Dodd probes the complex and fragile lives of men in their darkest shadows. With fierce characterizations rooted in Appalachian settings and mindedness, these stories reject the clear dreams and simple paths to redemption, focusing instead on the struggles to navigate and find conscience. Nesting in the somber conflicts, however, thrive strong moments of vision, humor, and the truth of experience, all hanging under a canopy of myth and symbol, the land and the past-often relegated in the minds of men, but vital nonetheless. Showing that darkness and light, life and death, are not so distinct from each other, the collection flashes its paradox in the title itself: Men in Midnight Bloom are tales pushing into not only the heart of loss and destruction, but also the long and precarious search for place and understanding in the modern world. Cowboy Jamboree Press