Six short stories about life. A slacker decides to become a life coach in "HOW TO LIVE LIFE." "THINGS TO DO IN MY NEXT LIFE" is a top ten list. A preacher fresh out of the Seminary eats Easter dinner with a dysfunctional Southern family in "SEEKING THE LIVING." A nine-year-old boy ponders "MR. BELCHER'S KILLING" at the supper table. A common cold becomes a life changer in "THE PLEASURE OF DYING." And an unpublished writer decides to write "A NOTE."

Ten-year-old Roy Brown sits in his chair at the kitchen table alone. Yesterday his brother, Billy, was killed on Pine Landing Road. Sixteen-year-old Billy is the Eagle's star basketball player. For Roy, he's "the swellest brother ever." Why did Billy die? Why was he drinking beer before the big game? Waiting for the sunrise, Roy relives that day in rural Alabama 1965.

Ten souvenir saucers trace a family's life in rural Alabama during the 20th century.

Closer to Mobile than Montgomery, wedged between woods and water, is a place nobody goes. Memories and ghosts thrive in present-day Canaan. Widow Sutton's place is falling down, the Baptist Church congregation dying out. Long ago those declared unworthy were buried outside the cemetery fence. Up on the hill overlooking Red Hill Creek, is a blank grave under a pink dogwood tree. According to folklore, Thomas John Sutton, 14, is buried under. Thomas loves Esther, but she isn't accepted in Canaan because of her bastard birth. After discovering the secret of his birth, Thomas fears he'll be treated the same. IN MEMORY OF is the story of two teenagers struggling against an unforgiving society in rural Alabama 1933.

Damascus Southern Baptist Church is holding a revival. Mildred knows it will be a disaster. Francis Paul Day, an ex-junkie, is the speaker. She snorts. "If matters aren't horrible enough, that heathen has the same christened name as my beloved son " Francis Paul Day proclaims, "I am a sinner Saved by the Grace of God Washed in the blood of Jesus Christ " Mildred mocks and ignores him. Knows what a heathen is. Describes her Second Blessings as "more than just doing right. It's the knowledge that you are pure. It's not thinking of yourself better than others, though you are, or showing it, though you do, since it's as natural as breathing. A Second Blessing is a gift shared with prophets of old and yet to come. It's not just having my name written in the Book of Life, but engraved." The first night ends with Communion. Mildred chokes on the Host. Although Francis Paul Day saves her, she knows he's obsessed with her granddaughter. Is determined to keep them apart. But exposing him reveals a family secret. Jonathan Swift said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." SECOND BLESSING ponders this truth.