by Cliff Hudder (Author), Brandy Beucler (Illustrator)
Wyatt W. Sallow, MBA--poet, business ethics professor, and coach of the 8th ranked collegiate chess team in East Texas--travels to the heart of northern England to trace his family origins in mundane Sallowsfield, only to find his supposed ancestry a mirage. He does have a real past, however: one that stalks him across the green hillsides in echoes of his catastrophic marriage, the lingering shadow of a lost child, and--there, in person, inexplicably emerging from the town's faux-Victorian train station--"X," the enigmatic object of his unrequited passion and a figure as perplexing as an algebraic variable. On his eight-day tour/pilgrimage/mock epic journey, Wyatt pursues the specter of his lost love and crosses paths with the citizens of this down-at-its-heels market town as they struggle to grasp the all-consuming obsessions, ghosts, and X-factors that confound their days. Thought-provoking yet dryly humorous, Sallowsfield weaves diverse elements into a story both light-hearted and philosophical, exploring along the way universal human touchstones of obsession, ruined love and the inexplicable mysteries that shape our lives.
Part of The Sabine Series in LiteratureAuthor Biography
CLIFF HUDDER earned an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Houston and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Texas A&M. He has been an archaeological laborer, film editor, photographer, electrical lineman, and educator. In addition to his published articles and short stories, his novella, Splinterville, won the 2007 Texas Review Fiction Award, and his novel, Pretty Enough for You, was named a Top-10 Texas favorite for 2015 by Lone Star Literary Life. Hudder teaches at Lone Star College-Montgomery in Conroe, Texas, and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2017.