Bob
Mustin was born in Louisiana, USA. He attended the U.S. Naval
Academy, Louisiana Tech University, and the University of North
Carolina, Asheville. He holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering from
La Tech and a Master of Liberal Arts degree with an emphasis on
creative writing from UNC-Asheville.
He
has worked in Georgia, USA, as a structural designer, specification
writer, and transportation administrator. He has been an instructor
in writing skills, and has served as a mentor. He's also been a North
Carolina Writers Network writer-in-residence at Peace College under
the late Doris Betts. In the early '90s, he was the editor of a small
literary journal, The Rural Sophisticate, based in Georgia. His work
has appeared in The Rockhurst Review, Elysian Fields Quarterly,
Cooweescoowee, Under The Sun, Gihon River Review, Reflections
Literary Journal, and at thesquaretable.com, raving dove, Sport
Literate, The Externalist, Language and Culture, Imitation Fruit, and
R.KV.R.Y in electronic form. A creative nonfiction piece won the
North Carolina Writer's Network Rose Post Award for Creative
Non-Fiction in 2007.
He
continues to write and publish novels, short fiction and non-fiction.
Book Genre: Literary, general fiction
Publisher: AuthorMike Ink Publishers
Release Date: March 2012
Step inside Sam's
and you can play a game of eight ball, nurse a beer, or get to know a
wayward preacher, a reformed hooker, an Iraq vet amputee - or Sam
himself. You may watch a baby being born, see a deadly knife fight,
or simply hear tall tales. But there's always a rough-hewn truth
within the lies, and Sam's there to manage everything from birth to
death with a righteous cant. All things considered, it isn't a bad
world. Sam's Place is a collection of interwoven short stories that
revolve around a local watering hole in the Alabama town of Striven.
Pull up a chair and get to know the locals in this powerful and
entertaining world that is Sam's Place.
Excerpt:
The
door to Sam's Place creaked open to an oppressive wedge of summer
afternoon heat. An aged stick of a man bent and entered. He doffed
his fedora - the broad-brimmed kind worn to keep the sun's
malevolence from an already parched neck and face. At the first
table, scrawny shooter Donnie eyed the man and spun twin streams of
cigarette smoke from his crooked nose.
"Hey,
dum-dum," he called out, "close the damn door."
The
older man stepped aside to allow a young, gaunt woman to enter. Then,
with a hard look, he strode to Donnie's table. "You, sir," he
said in his resonant preacher's voice, "are a heathen cur." He
grabbed Donnie's neck with one talon-like hand and squeezed.
Donnie's
face bulged red. The cigarette he'd wedged into a gap between his
snaggled teeth fell to the floor, issuing a cascade of tiny embers.
Sam
woke from his doze at the building's rear and fumbled his way
around the oaken bar. Shoes scuffled to make way for him.
The
spindly woman stood to the preacher's side, hands together at her
breast, as if a dog begging scraps. "Papa," she said, "you have
to let 'im go. It hardly serves the Lord's purposes to hurt 'im
now."
Before
Sam could force his round frame into the mildly odorous encounter,
the old man let Donnie go.
Donnie
squawked, then bent to retrieve his smoke. He eyed the old man. "I
know you now, you old sumbitch, you're that wandering preacher."
The
old man sniffed. He canted into a barely noticeable bow. "Leviticus
Withers, God's servant." One arm swept in a graceful arc before
his daughter. "And Dorene, one of His own angels." He regarded
Donnie with a long squint. "And who might you be? I wish to
remember those who malign the Lord."
"I
ain't m'ligned nothing," Donnie mumbled. He crawfished back a
step and rubbed his throat's blush.
Sam
now stood behind Donnie. He set his hands on the shooter's bony
shoulders. "Hang your hat and stay a while, Leviticus," he said
to the preacher. "What brings you back to good ol' Alabam'?"
The
preacher pressed his thin lips into a smile and handed his hat to
Dorene, who scurried away to a wall peg. He brushed at his shiny
gabardine coat with the back of one hand, as if to remove something
of Donnie from it. "The Lord's will brought me back to this den
of iniquity," he said, "to save lost souls." He drew a stack of
bi-folded brochures from an inside coat pocket and turned to Dorene.
"Daughter, give each of these sinners a bit of testimony, if you
please."
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