Based on a true story from the author's family history, Jarrettsville begins in 1869, just after Martha Jane Cairnes has shot and killed her fiance, Nicholas McComas, in front of his Union cavalry militia as they were celebrating the anniversary of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

To find out why she murdered him, the story steps back to 1865, six days after the surrender, when President Lincoln has just been killed by John Wilkes Booth. Booth belongs to the same Rebel militia as Martha's hot-headed brother Richard, who has gone missing along with Booth. Martha is loyal to...

Margaret Rose is a talented but nervous violinist given to bouts of stage fright and unrequited love; Webster Hale is a biologist who, on principle, refuses to kill animals in order to study them. In Angels Go Naked, a novel told in stories, Cornelia Nixon, a writer whose gift is apparent on every page, follows this vexed love story and the collision course they call their life together.

Their connection is never in doubt, though Webster is appalled by the urban underbelly of Chicago, which Margy calls home. He refuses to have children because the earth is overrun with humans, and...

"Rarely has a marriage so come alive in a work of fiction. . . So intense, beautifully written, shining with 'felt life, ' it is truly gripping--riveting." --Joyce Carol Oates

Abigail McCormick and Ray Stark are both poets, married nearly twenty-five years in what has always been a passionate relationship, despite their deep class differences. Ray is the son of West Virginia coal miners and was abused as a child--but now he is a distinguished poet with a part-time position at Brown. Abby grew up in San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights and, having abandoned poetry, she spends her...