Night Ride Home

by Vicki Covington

This is a new edition of Night Ride Home —the story of a smallAlabama mining town on the eve of World War II. Keller Hayesand Laura Sandifer are about to marry, Laura's father isthreatening to shoot Keller, and Bolivia, the town prostitute,is about to give birth to a baby whose father is a mystery.As that fateful December flips through the calendar andChristmas Eve arrives, a mine cave-in shifts attention toKeller's father, one of the trapped miners. And as the worldteeters on the brink of destruction, this small town will beforever changed and strengthened by its people and the demonsthey struggle to tame.In Night Ride Home , the metaphor of "home" is developedto perfection. But Covington's skill extends to more thancomparison and symbol; many of her sentences beg to be readaloud to savor their strength and beauty. Her descriptions areevocative and "Keller smiled. Evening was fallingteal blue. A thin coppery band of sunset painted the sky's edge.For as long as he could remember, he'd made this night ride homewith his parents. The sulphur scent of the scrap hill this timeof day mixed with Ben Ray's after-shave." And her evocation ofemotional states is as spare and skillful as her"It was his third day without a drink. His head was light, likean empty home before the movers come. The bad part was that noone knew just how remarkable it all was. Three days."Covington's insight into many of the characters in NightRide Home is a triumph of understanding and of compassionas well, for she introduces characters who seem unapproachableand then, she becomes them, and it is in doing so that her workas an artist becomes most we see that no one is beyondthe pale, that no sins are too great for forgiveness, that eventhe most hardened and callous people have humanity at their cores.About theVicki Covington is the author of Bird of Paradise, GatheringHome , and Cleaving (co-authored with her husband, Dennis), a1999 Library Journal best book of the year. She lives inBirmingham, Alabama, with her husband and two daughters andis a regular contributor to the Oxford American . Her shortfiction has also appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines.

Hardcover

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Vicki Covington lives in Homewood, Alabama with her husband, the author Dennis Covington. She has taught creative writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Vicki's novel, The Last Hotel for Women, was converted for the stage by her brother, playwright Randy Marsh, and was performed before sell-out crowds. It was also chosen by the University of Alabama Press for their Deep South series.