The End of California by Steve Yarborough

Can’t fully recall what drew me to read this book, but on the cover is the picture of a Piggly Wiggly store and that reminded me of the summers I spent in South Carolina with my aunt. Piggly Wiggly was the store she shopped in. So perhaps that’s what attracted my attention. It turned out to be a good story. It’s about a man who always seems to be on the run from something. And the something always has to do with a woman.

Pete Barrington left Mississippi for California to attend school and he ended up becoming a doctor. When he jeopardizes his career with an affair, he moves his family back to his hometown in Loring, Mississippi, of which I call Smalltown, USA because everybody knows everybody else’s business. His wife isn’t happy about this move and neither is his daughter. It turns out that when Pete first left Mississippi to attend college in California, it really was because of a woman. His homecoming opens a can of worms that he never thought would bother him again. Or lead to someone’s death.

This is one of those stories that you won’t want to put down. The author has a way of interestingly stringing you along until midway the book before some answers are revealed.

The author is A PEN/Faulkner finalist, and he has received the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, the Richard Wright Award, and an award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. He teaches at Emerson College and lives in Massachussets.