Camptown Races: And other tales from Camptown, Kentucky

In 1847, at the Tipsy Toad Saloon in Camptown,
Kentucky, Will Van Pelt shined the shoes of
Abraham Lincoln and received for his efforts an
> Over the next 150 years, the residents of this
fictional, yet familiar Midwest area, encounter
other famous people such as Stephen Foster
and John L. Sullivan. But those encounters
share the stage with entanglements of smalltown
commonfolk: George Freeman, a young slave
boy who won his freedom riding a bobtailed
nag named Lucy to victory in a horse race;
"Woolly" Wanda Listerman, the bearded lady;
Merle Goodman, a Baptist preacher who let
his desire for a young girl get the best of him;
and Paul Parmele, whose family experienced
a miracle when angels appeared in their
> Camptown Races presents the presidential
and the provincial, the renowned and the
rustic, the champs and the churls, with the
same unflinching honesty and humor. The
sum of the sketches adds up to a portrait
of the character of America's heartland and
of our human heart.