A man gains and loses many things on his journey from birth to 
death. Toward the end of life, it seems a man loses more than he 
gains. Retired heavy-equipment operator Cole Emerson has lost 
his wife, is about to lose his only sister, and is estranged from his 
daughter. He sells his trailer in Oklahoma and moves into his sister 
Elsie's house on Hardman Lake, a sprawling man-made 
impoundment in the lush Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri. 
Elsie is dying. During the day, Cole cooks, cleans, and tries to keep 
her comfortable, napping when she naps, adapting his needs to her 
schedule. At night, he escapes into the dark solitude of Hardman 
Lake to fish for bass and clear his head, until one night in 
Turnback Creek he sees a mysterious girl who awakens in him a 
young man's desires and old buried memories.

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LONNIE BUSCH has worked as a painter and illustrator, creating 
artwork for corporations and institutions across the United States, 
including the 2002 "Greetings from America" stamps and the 2004 
"Summer Olympics" stamp for the US Postal Service. His short 
stories have appeared in such publications as The Minnesota Review, 
The Baltimore Review, Chicago Quarterly Review,and The Southeast 
Review. Stories of his have also been finalists in the World's Best 
Short Short Story Competition in 2004 and the Tobias Wolff Award 
for Fiction in 2005. His most recent projects include the cover for 
Jimmy Buffett's latest novel, A Salty Piece of Land, as well as a 
block of forty new stamps for the Postal Service entitled "Wonders 
of America," which debuted in May of 2006.


What people are saying about this book

"Turnback Creek is a vividly realized, heart-rendering but never 
sentimental novella about one man's inability to go gently into 
death's good night. Lonnie Busch is an exciting new voice in 
Southern fiction."—Ron Rash