Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: A Time of Excellence in Southern Fiction -- Part I A Sense of History -- Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain -- Josephine Humphreys: Nowhere Else on Earth -- Kaye Gibbons: On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon -- Pam Durban: So Far Back -- Percival Everett: Erasure -- Part II A Sense of Place -- Steve Yarbrough: The Oxygen Man -- Larry Brown: Fay -- Chris Offutt: The Good Brother -- Barry Hannah: Yonder Stands Your Orphan -- James Lee Burke: Crusader's Cross -- Part III A Sense of Humor -- George Singleton: Work Shirts for Madmen -- Clyde Edgerton: The Bible Salesman -- James Wilcox: Heavenly Days -- Donald Harington: Enduring -- Lewis Nordan: Lightning Song -- Part IV A Sense of Malaise -- Ron Rash: One Foot in Eden -- Richard Ford: The Lay of the Land -- Cormac McCarthy: The Road -- Contributors -- Index.