At last the cat fell asleep and, because Armand still could, he drove his police-issue Crown Vic through the Plaza, down Main Street. He took a left on 47th, slid past Latte Land then Pottery Barn, past Barnes & Noble and Gap Kids, then left again. Three fat men stood outside a fake Irish bar and laughed while the snow came down, but Armand drove right past them too, over the bridge at Wornall and left again, to Ward Parkway then Main then 47th again. Around and around he drove while the cat slept in the cardboard box beside him . . .
His father had never come, nor his father’s father. Nothing called them. They drove their herds to the ridges, within sight of the distant towers and haze, and sold them to middlemen. They turned their horses when the business was done and rode back to the steppe, to the autumn camps and their families and the young, strong animals that would survive the howling winter and fatten in the spring . . .
Never answer the door at five forty-five a.m. on a Sunday morning. Either somebody’s too high, somebody has just died, or somebody has just arrived who wants to kill you . . .
It was when the papers come out with the gyal’s picture print big and broad on the front page that August Town people did find out her rightful name. Marilyn Fairweather. It sounded right. It sounded like a white woman’s name. But for the six days she had been in August Town we had just called her “the white gyal with the camera.” Or “the white gyal” for short.
Claire Kirch at Publishers Weekly has written an article that features Akashic’s new Black Sheep YA imprint. From the article: “Emphasizing that Black Sheep titles will respect the conventions in YA literature—there not be excessive sex, profanity, or violence—and that they will appeal to ‘reluctant readers’ as well as to readers looking for books that […]
