An Excerpt

“In those early days, when the town of Jasper was dripping with milk and honey, they had no sense that they belonged to a story. Long after the stores closed and weeds took root in the sidewalk cracks, their stories still live in the shadows of hollow buildings and forsaken streets.

This particular telling of the ancient story of love and avarice begins near the Massachusetts shore, with a fisherman named Merle Walker.”

“I used to sit under this bridge after it happened—the accident. It was so quiet until someone drove across. When cars crossed, they pounded the boards. The rumble washed over me. Grit sifted onto my hair and dress. I felt like one of Grandma’s snickerdoodles, covered in sugar and cinnamon. I felt alive again, pulled back from a pit I couldn’t climb out of. Nobody knew I was there but the rabbits and squirrels. Percy watched the dark water slide beneath the bridge. Just then, a car approached and rolled across the bridge. He had never thought of noise as something that could bring a person back to life.”