From Nickolas Butler, author of the national bestseller SHOTGUN LOVESONGS, comes a moving story of a cop's last bid to right a wrong she may have helped create. Aida doesn't recognize the young woman at first. It could be the scars that have altered Bethany's face, the ones she tries and fails to cover up, that make her unrecognizable. Or it could just be Aida's failing memory. Even before her retirement from the force she was losing track of things, whole days even. And it was in one of those moments that she fears she missed the chance to help Bethany before. A mistake that she now hopes she might be able to correct, or at the very least do penance for. Set amidst the failed farms and small towns of the prairie, IN WESTERN COUNTIES portrays one woman fighting to hold onto her own life, even as she frees the life of another.
Author
Nickolas Butler is the author of the novel "Shotgun Lovesongs" and a collection of short stories entitled, "Beneath the Bonfire". Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, he was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. His work has appeared in: Ploughshares, The Christian Science Monitor, The Kenyon Review Online, Narrative, The Progressive, and many other publications. Along the way he has worked as: a meatpacker, a Burger King maintenance man, a liquor store clerk, a coffee roaster, an office manager, an author escort, an inn-keeper (twice), and several other odd vocations. He presently lives on 16 acres of land in rural Wisconsin adjacent to a buffalo farm. He is married with two children.
