Charles McLeod

In these seven stories spanning the Midwest to California, Charles McLeod brings us characters estranged from their homelands and locked in conflict with their past and present selves. In ‚ÄúHow to Start Your Own Midwestern Ghost Town,‚Äù an unnamed narrator hatches a plan to capitalize on rural decay. A porn star trying to transition to the mainstream does an interview with a German reporter in ‚ÄúThe Subject of Our First Issue Is Art.‚Äù In the title story, a closeted heroin dealer follows a ghostly girl into an Oakland graveyard. And in ‚ÄúRancho Brava,‚Äù the conductor of a focus group about corporate salsa keeps getting interrupted by visitors from the Old West. Alternating between the comic, the tragic, and the neurotic‚Äîand often all three at once‚ÄîMcLeod‚Äôs second collection transports readers from the American mainstream to the dark edges of cities and the heartland‚Äôs lost, forgotten towns, into the lives of people trying to decipher if they can escape their pasts, and at what cost.

Settlers of Unassigned Lands

Charles McLeod

Information

About This Book