Novelist Gerald Duff grew up both in Polk County, in Deep East Texas, and in Nederland, near the Gulf Coast, two drastically different areas in terms of social and economic status, and the way they interact. These communities shaped the way Duff thought and lived, causing him to build up certain false personae to fit in with the crowd. These changes and more are described within the pages of Duff's new memoir, Home Truths: A Deep East Texas Memory . From dealing with intrusive family members to judgmental classmates to marital bliss and misery, Duff's memoir describes situations familiar to...

"Decoration Day and Other Stories" ranges in locale from the piney woods of Deep East Texas, to the mean streets of Memphis, to the suburbs of Washington, DC. Highly comic and deeply serious, the collection reaches from the late 19th century to the present day. The title story centers on elderly sisters striving to save an unjustly accused man from a lynch mob, while at the same time fetch home a wagonload of flowering bushes to commemorate their dead in the family cemetery. Captive to private delusions and bound to dreams of what ought to be, each character in Duff's eleven stories struggles...

"Playing Custer" is a novel narrated from varying points of view and time, illuminating personal and political events leading up to the death of General George Armstrong Custer. The historic events are framed by the story of two men from the late twentieth century--one white and one Native American--who travel together to the annual reenactment of the battle at the Little Bighorn National Monument battlefield.
Chatting during their journey, the two reenactors discuss their obsessions, personal ambitions, and failures of nerve. Interwoven with their progress toward the battle are...