When I took up professional lying (writing fiction), I thought I was done with the truth. But when I paused and turned back to look at my almost-decade of stories, I didn’t find pure fantasy. I found history, fractured and recast, but not false. I am still telling the truth-but slant, by starlight.
These are stories about the past as it wasn’t quite, but might have been, from ancient battlefields all the way up through roadside attractions off I-70. They’re about the people caught in the mean jaws of history: the women and workers, the soldiers and mothers, everyone shoved into the margins of the world.
But these aren’t tragedies-these are the stories of the ones that got away. The ones who defected and dissented, who broke the rules, who ran and tossed a match behind them.


