Towners and Other Stories

Everett Winter’s a household name in the rural, amateur boxing world of White Pine, until a tragic ring disaster brings about deep introspection. Would he be disloyal to abandon his birthplace and attend university in search of a new beginning? His childhood companions, just as quick with their fists, certainly think so! It’s a town and country balancing act he has the fancy footwork for, but against the ropes of this new, unfamiliar world, he soon discovers that “Towners” are fighting at a disadvantage. Then, Everett sees Meadow. . . .

In other stories from this unique debut collection, a pair of notorious hell-raisers slam down boilermakers with an infamous police chief; an amateur film maker ponders the importance of titles, often pornographic; an oddball freelancer watches a lost dog drown; a street busker abandons art to sample octopus with the rich; and a prophetic mentor exercises a fatal degree of influence on a young, impressionable poet.