Short story writer Belle Boggs reads from her first book, Mattaponi Queen, a collection of connected stories, some of which have previously appeared in The Paris Review, Glimmer Train, At Length, storySouth and Five Chapters.Set on the Mattaponi Indian Reservation and in its surrounding counties, the stories in this linked collection detail the lives of rural men and women with stark realism and plainspoken humor. A young military couple faces a future shadowed by injury and untold secrets. A dying alcoholic attempts to reconcile with his estranged children. And an elderly woman's nurse weathers life with her irascible charge by making payments on a decrepit houseboat--the Mattaponi Queen. The land is parceled into lots, work opportunities are few, and the remaining inhabitants must choose between desire and necessity as they navigate the murky stream of possession, love, and everything in between.Mattaponi Queen is being published by Graywolf Press as a result of being chosen the 2009 winner of the Katharine Bakeless Nason Fiction Prize.
