writes with quiet fire and maybe a little mountain magic…. Like every true storyteller, she has the Sight.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“McCrumb has earned her place among the ranks of America’s top storytellers.”
—The Tampa Tribune
“McCrumb is one of the rare writers whose work leads her genre instead of vice versa.”
—Elle
“McCrumb presents her Appalachian series as perfectly as dogwood in the spring.”
—Houston Chronicle
“In an earlier life, McCrumb must have been a balladeer, singing of restless spirits, star-crossed lovers, and the consoling beauty of nature. Here, that older folk material acts as refrain to the more realistic narrative…. The overall effect is spellbinding.”
—The Washington Post
“In her Ballad novels author Sharyn McCrumb…lays down a theme track, scores it with fascinating characters, and repeats the melody through subplot after subplot until readers are bewitched.”
—Spartanburg (SC) Herald Journal
“McCrumb draws you close, makes you care, leaves you with the sense, sought for in most fiction, that what has gone on has not been invention but experience recaptured.”
—Los Angeles Times
Also by Sharyn McCrumb
Ghost Riders
The Songcatcher
The Ballad of Frankie Silver
The Rosewood Casket
She Walks These Hills
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter
If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O
Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories
The PMS Outlaws
If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him
MacPherson’s Lament
Missing Susan
The Windsor Knot
Paying the Piper
Highland Laddie Gone
Lovely in Her Bones
Sick of Shadows
Zombies of the Gene Pool
Bimbos of the Death Sun
SHARYN McCRUMB
St. Dale
KENSINGTON BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
To Jane Hicks—the voice in my headset
There are only three real sports: mountain climbing, bullfighting, and automobile racing.
—Ernest Hemingway
Contents
Chapter I
Midnight in Mooresville
Chapter II
The Also-Ran
Chapter III
Tri-Cities
Chapter IV
The Knight’s Tale
Chapter V
Richard Petty in Heaven
Chapter VI
The Bride’s Tale
Chapter VII
An F-14 in a Clothes Dryer
Chapter VIII
Racing With the Angels
Chapter IX
May the Best Man Win
Chapter X
Circus Maximus
Chapter XI
Paycheck to Paycheck
Chapter XII
Martinsville
Chapter XIII
The Garage Mahal
Chapter XIV
The Rock
Chapter XV
The Pass in the Grass
Chapter XVI
Talladega Ghosts
Chapter XVII
The Changing of the Guard
Chapter XVIII
The Mother Church of American Racing
Chapter XIX
The Lady in Black
Chapter XX
Checking Out
AUTHOR’S NOTE
How I Came to Write St. Dale
Chapter I
Midnight in Mooresville
It was not the end of the world, but you could see it from there.
She was an educated woman with a career and a social position to think of, so she lived in fear that people would somehow hear about what had happened to her in April, 2002, on the road to Mooresville. A supermarket tabloid might shanghai her into the role of prophetess of a new religious cult, and people she didn’t even know would point and stare at her, and think she was a fool. The thought made her shudder. So she only told a few friends about the peculiar incident, and those to whom she did mention it heard it in the guise of a funny story, open to some logical explanation. Of course, Justine
