The Undertow of Small Town Dreams

This collection by John Weagly chronicles the legends and lives of Currie Valley - a hazy little town on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi. It's a quiet place, filled with ex-wrestlers, a bandit dreaming of glory and fame, a mistreated werewolf and love in a meteor shower. In Currie Valley, as with any good undertow, you might just get carried away."I love pleasant surprises and, in this business, one of the best pleasant surprises is finding evidence of a new writer worth reading and following. Thus I wish to bring to your attention a slender but handsomely produced collection of short stories called, evocatively enough, The Undertow of Small Town Dreams, by John Weagly... By the evidence presented in the 14 brief stories, he's an emerging writer of some accomplished work, and even more highly promising fiction looming on the near horizon....The tonal keys to Weagly's stories are whimsy and both the light and dark fantastic. There's a sense of Midwestern tall tale at work, along with a dash of the unexpectedly surreal.? -- Edward Bryant, Locus Magazine Review