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 DaysDonald 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