A new collection of stories set in the West from “one of the most gifted and versatile of contemporary writers” (NPR)<\/b><\/p>\n
Percival Everett’s long-awaited new collection of stories, his first since 2004’s\u00a0Damned If I Do<\/i>, finds him traversing the West with characteristic restlessness. A deaf Native American girl wanders off into the desert and is found untouched in a den of rattlesnakes. A young boy copes with the death of his sister by angling for an unnaturally large trout in the creek where she drowned. An old woman rides her horse into a mountain snowstorm and sees a long-dead beloved dog.<\/p>\n
For the plainspoken men and women of these stories\u2014fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians\u2014small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. A harmless comment about how to ride a horse changes the course of a relationship, a snakebite gives rise to hallucinations, and the hunt for a missing man reveals his uncanny resemblance to an actor.\u00a0Half an Inch of Water<\/i>\u00a0tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.<\/p>\n