The title and cover illustration of this novel harks back to one of the favorite pastimes that Agile and Hills enjoyed as boys growing up in Eastern Kentucky – displaying their marksmanship prowess and sometimes competing by shooting at tin cans. The novel begins when Agile’s mother asks his childhood friend, Hills, to help find him when he goes missing decades later. “Emotionally raw and true to the bone, this novel won’t leave you where it found you. The World of best friends Agile and Hills is tragic, comic, shocking, and familiar all at once. Their story and their families’ history is not set in a place, but woven of that place. Cope knows the lay of the land, the community of creatures, fields, and woods, as well as he knows his characters, some bewildered, some corrupt, others hanging on the best they can at the end of an unpaved road.” – George Ella Lyon. Steven R. Cope is a musician who performs and composes and has taught guitar to hundreds and a writer who has authored over 20 books for readers of all ages and genres and taught part-time at the three state universities within commuting distance of his rural home. He grew up in Menefee County, Kentucky, and has lived most of his adult life in the Clark County countryside.
Frankfort, Kentucky: Broadstone Books, 2018. 180 pages. Trade paperback.