The man who would be God

In this debut collection Paul Ruffin renders the details and textures of place in such a way that a world, whole and new, is evoked, vividly transporting readers to a setting they will recognize even if they've never been there before. Having planted readers' feet firmly in a tangible place, Ruffin urges readers to lift their feet and step again, and often that second step is a lulu. Readers may find themselves in a new dimension where the certainties of reality have. Been abandoned. These eleven stories probe the mythic possibilities of ordinary landscapes and daily events. In "The Beast Within" a couple whose tire has a blowout on a little-traveled road spend a nightmarish night under the watchful eye of an armed and dangerous old woman and her dog; in "The Fox" a long-suppressed misery erupts in a startling denouement as a farmer's wife listens to her husband talk about a fox caught in a coon trap; in "Lamar Loper's First Case" a. Neophyte public attorney, delivering a restraining order to an abusive husband, uses more than his law school training to handle a volatile situation; and in the title story a wealthy West Texas rancher, wishing to extend the dimensions of his sovereig