In , Chris Murphy illuminates the life within characters, the rough fusions between characters and more than anything a place, Northeastern Oklahoma, with the power to claim characters and work them into its weave. The result is fiction that becomes a place unto itself, with its own air, own distances, own loneliness, mystery and threat. Reading Murphy's stories, you'll find yourself inhabiting this singular place and caring for it mightily. In other words: you'll find that it's claimed you as well. -Ben Nickol, author of