In this Book
- Uke Rivers Delivers: Stories
- Book
- 2006
- Published by: Louisiana State University Press
- Series: Yellow Shoe Fiction
In the best tradition of southern storytelling, Uke Rivers Delivers features raconteurs as beguiling as the tales they tell. These lyrical, darkly humorous monologues portray a range of denizens of the American South desperately trying to come to grips with their inherited pasts. A Confederate reenactor receives a message from the beyond to lay to rest the remains of Stonewall Jackson's horse. A docent at Washington and Lee University's Lee Chapel offers prim instruction on the facts and legends about "the General" with both reverence and irony. The young son of a lewd, alcoholic, self-dubbed evangelist acquires the wits -- and the will -- for survival by protecting the family's sunflower crops. A midget ukulele virtuoso is so surprised by his own eruption into violence that he can attribute it only to genetics. One of Jeff Davis's fellow cross-dressers; the killer of John Wilkes Booth; a Rebel deserter whose superior exacts his pound of flesh -- all these characters and more, through their twisted and torn vernaculars, seek understanding and revival in R. T. Smith's superb collection.
Table of Contents
- Jesus Wept
- pp. 1-10
- I Have Lost My Right
- pp. 11-20
- Uke Rivers Delivers
- pp. 51-61
- Bitterwolf
- pp. 62-83
- Razorhead the Axeman
- pp. 87-92
- Dear Six Belles,
- pp. 93-100
- Little Sorrel
- pp. 101-112
- Stop the Rocket
- pp. 119-128
- Visitation
- pp. 129-133
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 141-142