Dancing on Barbed Wire

Co-authors Terry Dalrymple, Jerry Craven and Andrew Geyer deliver the excitement promised in the title and then some as they propel the reader through pages of love, lust, betrayal and redemption. The sixteen interlocked narratives move at a clip through time and space, from the Civil War to the present, from sun-scorched brush country to the lush and sometimes lethal Piney Woods. Although readers may detect shades of Hawthorne and Faulkner in the haunted houses, serial characters, disembodied voices and rattling family skeletons appearing in these stories, their ethos is distinctly Texan, complete with fields of swaying bluebonnets, sprawling ranches, a champion roping horse and plenty of three-alarm chile. The authors deftly sidestep stereotypes, however, instead showcasing such unexpected characters as a cowboy who hates cattle, a parrot that curses mailmen, and a Hill Country farmer who prays to the Roman goddess Fortuna. Reading this story cycle is like doing a jigsaw puzzle--there's no mistaking the satisfaction of snapping that final piece into place and admiring the master narrative that suddenly emerges.