Hanging On for Dear Life

Hanging On for Dear Life is a book of mostly humorous stories and sketches about dropping out of big city life and moving to the Ozarks and living by new rules among new people (who turn out to be strangely familiar to everyone). It is about a world where various kinds of gravity pull at the characters--pull them down off the mountains, down off their "high horses," down out of whatever clouds they live in. It is a world where the battles get faught at the bowling alley, the pool table, or the berry patch, and where the secret of life may very well be Bingo. It is also a world full of canoes, motorcycles, ATVs, and 4-wheel drive off-road monstrosities--and cliffs and canyons and caves, and mythic old barns. The book is a sequel to Teetering on the Brink (2003).