Excerpt from In the Country of the Blind by Edward Hoagland, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You're a breath of fresh air," Dorothy told Press, meaning his knack for suggesting ideas for pieces for the local paper she had overlooked—like the novel viewpoint those summer boarders from the city had brought to her parents' farm when she was young.

Press felt energized by Carol's opening to him, and Dorothy's approval, Karl's savvy and sympathetic stoicism, and the Avis and Darryl Clarks' dependable support. Those multiple hugs in the Solid Rock Gospel pews solaced him too. And you didn't know, or need to know, whether the lady was "pretty," but maybe recognized her perfume from last week. Twice a week he went with Avis and Darryl to church, often sharing a potluck supper there after the service, or doing his shopping and mailing a check Avis had helped him fill out and sign. No call for Meals on Wheels or social worker visits, at least so far. The principal drag on his spirits remained only the inevitable pain of losing his children for this extended period. How could they visit him under the circumstances, and his daily phone calls were turning dutiful at their end. Their friendships he remembered were also turning passé. His night dreams when peopled with them tended to be affectionately reassuring, however. The one thorn in his shoe at night, so to speak, were occasional outside sounds. The tattoo of owl hoots from down in the swamp were fine, but the rasp of an ATV vehicle or faint shout after dark was not. Did he even hear footfalls on the trail his driveway led to, and then a car engine start on the road, as though a passenger had been picked up?

To live in a bootlegger's old house had its ghosts, indoors and out, but what did it mean in terms of action now? And who could he ask? Karl as a fire chief cooperated with lawmen on suicides, lost hunters, suspicious fires, and ambulance calls, yet he also shot deer out of season and resented the Customs and Immigration vans that serviced the barrier and motion sensors blocking entry to Canada at the border on Ten Mile Road. It had never had a booth there, but people formerly could cross. The dead "Chinaman" hadn't roused him to call the authorities, while the Clarks, for their part, seemed to have woven a Christian cocoon around their farm, regardless of outlaw neighbors like Karl's dad and grandpa or lately the hippies. See and hear no evil was their solution to ambiguity when no neat wraparound answer, like asking Melba to clean for Press, was at hand. If Press continued to rub shoulders at the commune, it was his lookout, not theirs.

Excerpted from In the Country of the Blind by Edward Hoagland. Copyright © 2016 by Edward Hoagland. Excerpted by permission of Arcade Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.