twilight: the light from the sky between full night and sunrise or between sunset and full night. . . .; an intermediate state that is not clearly defined; a period of decline

reel: a flanged spool for photographic materials, especially one for motion pictures; to turn or move round and round, to be in a whirl; to behave in a violent disorderly manner; to waver or fall back (as from a blow); to walk or move unsteadily; a lively Scottish-Highland [or Irish] dance, also the music for this dance

On May 3, 2019, I finished the first draft of the final piece of a short story collection, tentatively titled “A Twilight Reel.” I’ve been working on it for more years than I care to mention. If any of you have read — or even heard of — my first novel Gabriel’s Songbook, then you probably know that Gabriel comes from a little (mostly fictional) place known as Runion, which is located where the Laurel River joins the French Broad River in Madison County, North Carolina. I’d say that at least a third if not half of the novel takes place there. (See my previous post on Runion for more about it.)

The whole of “A Twilight Reel” takes place in Runion and the surrounding area. Each story takes place in a different month of a single year. I think the first two pieces written for the collection were the January and March stories, but without looking it up in my curriculum vitae or checking the journals on my shelf, I can’t remember which was written first. (My guess is that March came first.) The year in which all twelve stories are set wasn’t finally settled on until the final story — final both in the sequence (it’s the December story) and in the creation. As that story developed, the year was obviously 1999.

This arrangement allowed me to portray lots of different kinds of people who live in Runion and also display the character of the Appalachian mountains through the course of their four beautiful seasons. But 1999 also suggests other changes. By that time a number of different kinds of people began to call the mountains of western North Carolina home. Even though the Y2K event fell far short of the fear it generated, it still hinted at significant transformations to come — bringing us Barak Obama and Donald Trump. In the creation of Runion and some of its stories, I deepened my understanding of this imagined community. (You can get a small sense of how I’ve arranged and kept track of the history and people and places here.)

I won’t say more about the collection at this time beyond giving you the titles and any brief descriptions I can think of.

  • “The Wine of Astonishment” (January): the title is taken from Psalm 60:3 (KJV) — [O God, . . .] Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou has made us to drink the wine of astonishment.
  • “The Loves of Misty Sprinkle” (February): this young woman works at Eliza’s Runion hair salon; she’s a romantic sensualist, who considers Valentine’s Day a religious holiday in much the same way that American pseudo-Christian zealots celebrate Independence Day.
  • “Overwinter” (March): a blizzard hits the mountains just as the wife of a professor at Runion State University is preparing to leave him; she’s snowbound with him, but he’s more concerned with trying to keep the old woman up the hill from freezing to death.
  • “The Flutist” (April): a popular flute professor dies in the middle of his spring concert, and the RSU music faculty has to find a replacement before the next school year.
  • “Decoration Day” (May): three stories take place at once here — 1) a Decoration Day in a family cemetery across the river from Runion; 2) a Civil War reenactment at a local historical site; 3) a man’s attempt to avenge the death of a loved one in the Shelton Laurel Massacre of 1863.
  • “Conversion” (June): a preacher in the Lonesome Mountain American Christian Church has run off with the church’s money and a member’s wife, and the building has been bought by the local Muslim community for its mosque.
  • “The Invisible World Around Them” (July): a local legend and fiddle champion returns home to Runion to die.
  • “Grist for the Mill” (August): a Runion neighborhood keeps an eye on a stranger who has just moved into a house on their street.
  • “A Poster of Marilyn Monroe” (September): with his wife dead, an elderly man renews his obsession with Marilyn Monroe.
  • “A Fiddle and a Twilight Reel” (October): local meanness erupts in response to unsettling changes, and another man dies while making music.
  • “Two Floors Above the Dead” (November): when their older brother dies of cancer, two unmarried and estranged siblings have to imagine a way forward.
  • “Witness Tree” (December): a middle-aged woman works in the RSU library and dreads the arrival of the winter holidays to be spent with her husband’s family and their Y2K fears.

These are certainly twilight days in our world, and the Appalachia in which I grew up is not exempted from the obscurity and ambiguity, even though many people think that their traditional home lives and religious practices safeguard them against change. We reel under the uncertainty as to whether this twilight world is that between evening and night or between night and morning.