Stories from The Road Not Taken

The stories in this collection are set in and around the imaginary town of Shaw's Pond in Southside Virginia. The fictional players, including the narrator, are interrelated by bloodlines, marriages, secret loves, scandals and ancient grudges. As with people the world over, the characters and their stories are nourished by the legends that so often enrich the most ordinary of lives. To be sure, a lot is going on at Shaw's Pond.

Henry Hurt has been an editor and writer for more than fifty years. As Editor-at-Large for Reader's Digest Magazine in its hey-day, he reported on events from espionage and terrorism to disasters--both natural and man-made. But his favorite subjects were the poignant stories of people where the human spirit shined through circumstances that seemed hopeless. Hurt lives in Southside Virginia.