Brother Odell Gets the Call to Preach: Book of Short Stories

This book of short stories follows two young brothers and their musically talentedcousins around the country town of Bennetts Crossroads from the 1940s to thepresent. One brother graduates college, the other goes to work in the local cottonmill. After Odell, the younger, hears a call to preach, a rift grows between themuntil they are estranged for twenty years.Raunchy music, Burl Thompson's moonshine, and his seven uninhibited daughters,make for hilarious hijinks and leads one cousin to the cusp of fame but later, tobittersweet disappointment and tragedy. Another cousin, nicknamed Uncle Flopbecause of his big ears, is haunted by PTSD. Following a hitch in Viet Nam,Uncle Flop marries one of the " Thompson girls", spends seven years in prison for a"Shooting at the Buffalo River Bridge" (Chapter 8) then disappears from BennettCounty for two decades to avoid incarceration after another shooting.Attempting to reconcile their differences, the two 70-year-old brothers camp out fora weekend on the old farm where they grew up. Sparks fly as they hammer away ateach other's wisdom on the crucial problems facing modern man: Truth, evil, war,the environment, and, of course, religion. Before the camping trip is over, they reacha truce, of sorts, and are able to play music together for the first time since theiryouth - which leads to an ending that warms the heart.This is not a children's book. Beginning with Chapter 7, several stories deal withadult situations that may include sexual content.As a fiction writer, Herman Myrick has one goal: To create believable and entertainingliterary stories that are true-to-life and worthy of the readers' time.He wrote his first story in 1963 as a correspondence course assignment whileworking the night shift in a textile mill. Since then, he has spent countless hoursstudying writing at community colleges, at conferences and workshops, while alwaysworking a full-time job. That first story, " The Dry Spell" was later published in acollege magazine.He was born near Biscoe, North Carolina in 1941 and grew up as one of eightchildren on a one-horse farm six miles from the nearest town. He attended BiscoeHigh School and Presbyterian Junior College, for one year.Other books by Herman Myrick:dispatches from the still small voice (book 1)The Diary of a Man Who Studied War