The oracle at Stoneleigh Court

About this book

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Summons to Memphis, here is a haunting new collection of stories that examine lost love, retribution, second chances, human perversities ... and ghosts. Peter Taylor draws us again into a world that he has made distinctively his own in his fiction, the comfortable society of affluent Tennesseeans - men and women of good character, with a sense of family, of style, and an awareness of the past that has shaped them. Yet for all. Their rootedness, other forces - often alien - intervene to change the course of fate in these entrancing, often chilling tales. In the long title story, we see the widow of a Tennessee congressman, long established in Washington, D.C., making ruthless use of her unearthly powers to play matchmaker for her shy young nephew. In "Demons," a young boy hears voices that others do not (and which foretell his cousin's ruin). "The Witch of Owl Mountain Springs" is an aged. Spinster who carries out her revenge on the man who betrayed her when she was young and beautiful. In "An Overwhelming Question," a young engaged couple get too caught up in a game of cat and mouse over whether or not to remain chaste before their honeymoon. A reserved young man undergoes a mysterious change of personality after he accompanies the body of his uncle on a funeral train (a story that forms part of Peter Taylor's forthcoming novel about Cousin Aubrey). In. Another story, told as a one-act play, a brother and sister are visited by the ghost of their father - but it is a very different ghost each one sees. Who is the real one? These and other dark questions surface and alter our consciousness in this rare and marvelous collection by a master teller of tales.