"This novel is sure to join the rich canon of Southern literature." --Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August From Pushcart Prize nominee Danny Johnson comes a powerful, lyrical debut novel that explores race relations, first love, and coming-of-age in North Carolina in the 1950s and '60s. At eight years old, Raeford "Junebug" Hurley has known more than his share of hard lessons. After the sudden death of his parents, he goes to live with his grandparents on a farm surrounded by tobacco fields and lonesome woods. There he meets Fancy Stroud and her twin brother, Lightning, the children of black sharecroppers on a neighboring farm. As years pass, the friendship between Junebug and bright, compassionate Fancy takes on a deeper intensity. Junebug, aware of all the ways in which he and Fancy are more alike than different, habitually bucks against the casual bigotry that surrounds them--dangerous in a community ruled by the Klan. On the brink of adulthood, Junebug is drawn into a moneymaking scheme that goes awry--and leaves him with a dark secret he must keep from those he loves. And as Fancy, tired of saying yes'um and living scared, tries to find her place in the world, Junebug embarks on a journey that will take him through loss and war toward a hard-won understanding. At once tender and unflinching, The Last Road Home delves deep into the gritty, violent realities of the South's turbulent past, yet evokes the universal hunger for belonging. Advance praise for The Last Road Home "In this intense and well?written debut novel, Danny Johnson probes deep into the cauldron of racial relations in the 1960's South. The Last Road Home introduces an exciting new voice in Southern Literature." --Ron Rash, author of Above the Waterfall "In The Last Road Home, Danny Johnson evokes a South that in many ways may be gone, thank the Lord. Yet Johnson's compelling and heartfelt rendering of Junebug and Fancy couldn't be more charged and alive. The long dramatic arc of their deep and ever evolving relationship traces a time and a place giving way to change in violent fits and starts. Yet this is no sociological treatise. It's a flesh and blood story about two people, who risk just about everything time and time again, for nothing more and nothing less than to love each other." --Tommy Hays, author of In The Family Way "The Last Road Home took me straight into the heart of a wounded boy who becomes a complicated man. By the end of this stunning novel, I felt I'd come to understand humans better than I had before, how we come to be the way we are: tender and full of fury. I don't recall having such a reaction to a novel. Author Danny Johnson shrinks from nothing. I say: read it!" --Peggy Payne, author of Cobalt Blue "Johnson's moving novel beautifully portrays the ways in which his young characters struggle to overcome the history that has so fully shaped their lives." --John Gregory Brown, author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

This anthology of twenty-two short stories by contemporary North Carolina writers, selected by Gingher, the longtime book review editor of the Greensboro News and Record, is a testament to the vitality of the literary tradition of the state. Contributors include Alice Adams, Maya Angelou, Doris Betts, Fred Chappell, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Allan Gurganus, Randall Kenan, Reynolds Price, and Lee Smith.

We learn lessons every day. Some lessons are simple, some profound. Some change our minds. Some change our perceptions. And some change our entire journey. At the end of life, which lessons learned when you look back will have the greatest influence on creating an abundantly joy-filled life? What lessons would you want to leave with those that you love? What experiences in your life journey have led to more love-filled roads? This is the voyage of the author’s discovery of what living a well-loved life learned entails. The gift of these life-changing lessons will direct the reader in ways, that if applied, will lead to life-altering directional changes. As the author narrates her encounters, she will bring the reader along with her on the journey. The reader and the author will travel through the mountains and valleys, through life’s ruts to beautiful soaring successes. They will venture together as they meet twelve beautiful souls who will honor them with the perspective of their life lessons as they walk the final steps in their journey. Their courageous stories will forever change the reader and may impact them profoundly in ways that they never expected. These encounters will bring tears. Tears of joy. Tears of hope. Tears of love.

New Bremen, Ohio, was mostly like countless other small farm towns in that part of the state in the 1950s. The primary business at the time was farmingcorn, wheat, hay, alfalfa, and soybeans, along with some dairy farmingand there were always cows and pigs in the fields. And its where author Robert Gilberg spent the first twenty-two years of his life. In The Last Road Rebel, he shares what it was like growing up in that small town. In this memoir, Gilberg admits he is probably lucky to have survived his childhood; some of his friends did not. He is also lucky to have met the right girl at the right time who unknowingly gave him the push needed for him to climb out of an early life with a limited future. The storiessome hilarious, some horribly sad, and some just funtell of a young person who experienced the tortures of found and lost teen love, knew the disappointment of poor preparation for life after school, and finally looked himself in the mirror and decided it was time to get out of that place. Against the backdrop of the times, when the sounds on the radio were changing from Perry Como and Patti Page to Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis, and Little Richard, The Last Road Rebel recalls the times, places, people, events, and experiences that have stayed with Gilberg forever.

Following the poignant death of a man they barely knew, four friends decide to make the most of what’s left of their lives. Abandoning the humdrum routine of life at their retirement estate, they embark on a thousand-mile road trip that will take them from the furthest corner of the Kruger Park to the blazing stars of Sutherland for the biggest adventure of their lives and one last hurrah together. Along the way, they rediscover things about themselves that they thought had long since been lost. Above all, they discover that it’s never too late to start living. Gareth Crocker’s latest novel is all heart and page-turning glory.

Nineteen-year-old Georgia survived four years of forced prostitution and drug addiction by clinging to the false hope that her brothers—unaware of her existence—would one day rescue her. The last thing Blackie, Judd, and Rebel McCassey expect to discover when they catch a young girl loitering in front of their garage, is that she's their younger, half-sister. Immediately, they want to help Georgia overcome her addiction and bring her into the family fold, despite her adamancy that she isn't good enough to be a McCassey. Used to handling things their own way, the brothers soon realize that this time, they can't fix things by throwing powerful right hooks, firing semi-automatic weapons, or simply saying, 'no worries'. This time, they need an outsider's help. But Georgia's skeptical, and doubt consumes her as her strength and confidence falter. Georgia knows her brothers will fight for her...but will she fight for herself?