Living in the Meantime

Richard Barnett offers three contemporary tales of south Georgia and north Florida. An alcoholic pastor struggles with failure and loss and with the racial complexities of his family and flock in the aftermath of "The Storm of the Century." A young graduate student's recovery from a sexual assault is complicated by her desire for revenge, a secret, and a family member's fight to keep intact the last remnants of their land amid suburban encroachment. In an apocalyptic contemporary time, a band of child soldiers hiding out in the north Florida woods, carrying out sprees of vengeful attacks on New Order military and civilian targets, capture a priest on the run from the new government and his past.