Will Alexander, sheriff of a small town in southern Appalachia, is baffled by a murder case with no body and no suspect, and sets out to find the truth about what really happened to a local thug.

This volume is a reflection on the different stages of life, from the innocence of the new-born child to the passion and wisdom of later years. The author draws on the life and teachings of Jesus, ending each chapter with a meditation exercise.

A comparative sociological account of eight different therapeutic communities, One Foot in Eden, originally published in 1988, was the first study in this area to compare observational material from such a large number of settings. The communities chosen represent the wide variety of therapeutic community practice at the time: a residential Rudolf Steiner school for mentally handicapped children; two contrasting residential psychiatric units; a community for the treatment of addiction; a communally organised community for mentally handicapped and disturbed young people; a psychiatric day hospital; and two contrasting halfway houses for disturbed adolescents. All these places are recognised therapeutic communities seeking to mobilise the social life of the community as an instrument of therapy, yet, as this study shows, they follow different (and sometimes antithetical) treatment practices. The book also directs new light on other areas, of particular concern to sociologists, such as the general properties of therapeutic work and the socialisation process as it is experienced by new community residents. It will be of special interest to therapeutic community staff, to sociologists of medicine and occupations, and to others involved in the care of disturbed and handicapped people.

From a major voice in Southern literature comes award-winning author Ron Rash's Saints at the River, a novel about a town divided by the aftermath of a tragic accident--and the woman caught in the middle. When a twelve-year-old girl drowns in the Tamassee River and her body is trapped in a deep eddy, the people of the small South Carolina town that bears the river's name are thrown into the national spotlight. The girl's parents want to attempt a rescue of the body; environmentalists are convinced the rescue operation will cause permanent damage to the river and set a dangerous precedent. Torn between the two sides is Maggie Glenn, a twenty-eight-year-old newspaper photographer who grew up in the town and has been sent to document the incident. Since leaving home almost ten years ago, Maggie has done her best to avoid her father, but now, as the town's conflict opens old wounds, she finds herself revisiting the past she's fought so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, the reporter who's accompanied her to cover the story turns out to have a painful past of his own, and one that might stand in the way of their romance. Drawing on the same lyrical prose and strong sense of place that distinguished his award-winning first novel, One Foot in Eden, Ron Rash has written a book about the deepest human themes: the love of the land, the hold of the dead on the living, and the need to dive beneath the surface to arrive at a deeper truth. Saints at the River confirms the arrival of one of today's most gifted storytellers.

Vivid, harrowing yet ultimately hopeful, The World Made Straight is Ron Rash's subtlest exploration yet of the painful conflict between the bonds of home and the desire for independence. NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NOAH WYLE, JEREMY IRVINE, MINKA KELLY, ADELAIDE CLEMENS, STEVE EARLE, AND HALEY JOEL OSMENT. "ONE OF THE MAJOR WRITERS OF OUR TIME."—THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION Travis Shelton is seventeen the summer he wanders into the woods onto private property outside his North Carolina hometown, discovers a grove of marijuana large enough to make him some serious money, and steps into the jaws of a bear trap. After hours of passing in and out of consciousness, Travis is discovered by Carlton Toomey, the wise and vicious farmer who set the trap to protect his plants, and Travis's confrontation with the subtle evils within his rural world has begun. Before long, Travis has moved out of his parents' home to live with Leonard Shuler, a one-time schoolteacher who lost his job and custody of his daughter years ago, when he was framed by a vindictive student. Now Leonard lives with his dogs and his sometime girlfriend in a run-down trailer outside town, deals a few drugs, and studies journals from the Civil War. Travis becomes his student, of sorts, and the fate of these two outsiders becomes increasingly entwined as the community's terrible past and corrupt present bear down on each of them from every direction, leading to a violent reckoning—not only with Toomey, but with the legacy of the Civil War massacre that, even after a century, continues to divide an Appalachian community.

The lives of a middle-aged doctor and a love-struck young woman intersect across time in Sleeping in Eden, Nicole Baart’s haunting novel about love, jealousy, and the boundaries between loyalty and truth. On a chilly morning in the Northwest Iowa town of Blackhawk, Dr. Lucas Hudson is filling in for the vacationing coroner on a seemingly open-and-shut suicide case. His own life is crumbling around him, but when he unearths the body of a woman buried in the barn floor beneath the hanging corpse, he realizes this terrible discovery could change everything. Lucas is almost certain the remains belong to Angela Sparks, the missing daughter of the man whose lifeless body dangles from a rope above. When Angela went missing years earlier, he and his wife never really believed she was just another teenage runaway. Fueled by passion, Lucas resolves to uncover the details of Angela’s suspected death, to bring some closure to their small community and to his wife. But his obsession may not be able to fix what is broken and Lucas may be chasing shadows… Years before Lucas ever set foot in Blackhawk, Meg Painter met Dylan Reid. It was the summer before high school and the two quickly became inseparable. Although Meg’s older neighbor, Jess, was the safe choice, she couldn’t let go of Dylan no matter how hard she tried. Caught in a web of jealousy and deceit that spiraled out of control, Meg’s choices in the past ultimately collide with Lucas’s discovery in the present, weaving together a taut story of unspoken secrets and the raw, complex passions of innocence lost.

One Foot in Eden: Modes of Pastoral in Romantic Poetry