TIMOTHY SCHAFFERT
THE SINGING AND DANCING DAUGHTERS OF GOD
A blithe and redemptive seriocomic love story filled with country music, the ghosts of Halloween, and an ironic brand of down-home religion.
Newly divorced and feeling the pain of separation from his family, Hud Smith channels his regret into writing country-western songs, contemplating life on the lam with his 8-year-old daughter, and searching cryptic postcards for news of his teenage son who has run off with The Daughters of God, an alternative Gospel-punk band of growing fame. Then he finds himself inching toward reconciliation with his ex, tossing his whole talent for misery into question as they head off in a borrowed school bus, hoping so very tentatively to bring the entire family together again.
In this endearing misadventure that threatens to turn out right in spite of it all, Schaffert writes a thin line between tragedy and hilarity, turning wry humor and a keen sense of the paradoxical onto characters who deserve all the tender care he gives them.
$14.95 | Fiction Trade Paperback Original | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 | 256 pages
November 2005
ISBN: 1-932961-12-7
EISBN: 978-1-93607-130-2
A nightlight near Nina’s bed lit the room enough for Hud to see Nina sleeping still in a cowgirl costume, still even in boots and prairie skirt and western shirt printed with yellow roses. A straw hat hung on the bedpost. Hud tugged on Nina’s skirt and she woke peacefully, too peacefully, Hud thought. “You shouldn’t be sleeping next to an open window,” he whispered, and Nina sat up in bed and puckered her lips for a kiss. Hud kissed her, then said, “Any creep could come along. Aren’t you afraid of creeps?”
“Oh, sure,” Nina said, shrugging her shoulders.
“Let’s go for a drive some place,” Hud said. He opened the window and lifted the torn flap of the screen.
“OK,” she said, standing up in the bed, “but first, don’t you like my costume? We went to a party.”
“It’s nice,” Hud said.
“I’m Opal Lowe,” she said, and Hud was touched that she dressed up like Opal Lowe, his favorite country singer. He’d taken Nina to a county fair a few weeks before to see Opal singing in the open-air auditorium. … Nina had loved it and had hummed along as Opal Lowe sang about her man’s habits, of how he had liquored her up on Wild Turkey, lit her Old Golds, made her need him like water.
… Hud jotted a note in crayon: “I’ll be back with her before sunlight, before you even read this,” and left it atop the rumpled covers of the bed. Nina crawled onto his back, and they slipped through the torn window screen. He imagined never returning with her, imagined his picture next to her picture on fliers sent through the mail.
Timothy Schaffert grew up on a farm in Nebraska and currently lives in Omaha. He’s the author of three previous critically acclaimed novels including The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters and The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God. His novels have been a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. His writing has won numerous other awards and honors awards, including the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, the Henfield/Transatlantic Review Award and the Nebraska Book Award. He currently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Author photo by Rodney Rahl
