SOMEONE TO CRAWL BACK TO is a novel-in-stories, a collection of hearts in search of what theyve always wanted or what theyve eternally lost. Set in small town South Carolina, those hearts belong to wrecker drivers, drive-thru fast food workers, college professors, bartenders, insurance and mobile homes salesmen. Their common ground is The Paradise Lounge. The death of a marriage, Joshua and Rene Serverances, forms the spine of the book, but included in this small community of seekers are George Scarborough and his softball-playing wife; Evander Baker, who helps his sister bury a bag of...

Phillip Gardner's collection of stories Somebody Wants Somebody Dead pretty much corners the market when it comes to people living on the wrong side of the law--which is usually the right side of the law in these locales --and taking matters into their own hands. Throw in a garbage collecting voyeur, an obese drowning victim, a Bicycle Man, and a whole knot of ne'er-do-wells and these fantastic stories will make you think, "My life's bad, but it ain't this bad, " which is to say that Gardner's hit the mark in the tragi-comedy venue.

George Singleton...

Eighteen tragicomic short stories that explore love, tragedy, and loss. As he disassembles an infant's nursery, a father struggles for ways to tell his young daughter her brother is dead; a boy learns the truth about his parents' divorce; an out of work rock musician finds himself custodian of an abandoned child; a wife who sets out to find her husband's secret lover discovers a secret she's kept from herself; while settling their estranged father's estate, adult sisters encounter a side of their parents they never knew; a ne'er-do-well uncle pays the price for putting his young nephew's life...