Frog Gig and Other Stories/Speer Morgan/109 pp.

Another MULSA book sale remainder!
The author, Speer Morgan, is an MU English professor and editor of The Missouri Review. This volume is a collection of some of his early short fiction. Morgan attended school at the University of the South, and received his BA from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and the stories in this collection are set in the small towns of the American South. In the title story, a college student visits a childhood friend, and the two go on a late-night frog hunt. The narrator of "The Oklahoma and Western" is a country/folk singer who has hit the big time in Los Angeles. "The Bad Cat", set in Columbia, MO, relates the problems a retired professor of agriculture is having with a stray cat, and with the coming of old age. In "Momma and the Moonman", Momma causes problems with NASA's moon launch when she "magics" an astronaut off of her television and into her living room. Morgan grew up in Ft. Smith Arkansas, across the river from Oklahoma and the old Indian Territory. The story "Jack Woman Killer" deals with a young Native American man's difficulty in balancing the customs of his ancestors with the White Man's world of the 20th century. Finally, "The Bullet" appears to be a semi-autobiographical piece about Morgan's life growing up in Ft. Smith, where his family owned a hardware store.