Jerry Whitus

The Innocent and Others contains fourteen evocative, elegantly structured stories of innocent and not so innocent characters forced to confront events both uplifting and menacing. In large part, they are seeking solace or “Restitution,” which is the title of the first story. In another story, “A House in the Woods,” a young hunter comes upon the body of an old man, sending the boy on a dark journey to a strange house and even stranger ending. In “We Recruits in Granny Pearl’s Army,” a grandmother employs charm and a kind of sorcery to turn her six step-grandchildren against their parents. And in “Bible Music,” a Las Vegas musician, summoned by his vulnerable father, travels home to find the beloved man entangled in a dangerous old-time religious sect. Set in small towns of Texas and Louisiana, the tales in The Innocent and Others portray a landscape of bayous and slow rivers, baygalls, swampland, and thickets with a prose that is lyrical yet economical, all while conjuring an atmosphere of mystery and witchery.​​​​