More on: exile

Midnight, mid-May. The earth supple with three weeks of rain, Queen Anne lacing the clover, dandelions racing the slope of hill behind our house. Water pooled in every nick and hollow bared to sky, moss slick and greening inside the curbs. Our dog noses through yards, puddle-pawed, until suddenly he is gone—bent to the wild…

Ron Hansen’s novels are Desperadoes, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (both from Knopf), Mariette in Ecstasy, Atticus, Hitler’s Niece, and Isn’t It Romantic? (all from HarperCollins). Atticus was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Hansen is also the author of the story collection Nebraska…

Inherited but Never Inhabited Story and the Garden   MY GRANDMOTHER MARY ALICE kept her big, tissue-paged Bible beside her party-line telephone and flipped through it, reading here and there, as she listened in on the stories being told along the Edmond Road. Even now, many of my kin keep Bibles by them the way…