Royo County

One year in the lives of a handful of people living in a farm county in central California. This is the immediate universe of Royo County, a transcendent novel that recalls the work of John Steinbeck and the "storyness" of Winesburg, Ohio. Seemingly artless as it spins the tales of a small, inbred community, it soars and seduces and expands the imagination, until it becomes unforgettable. Evil is the protagonist, the pervading theme - but an evil as impersonal and inevitable as nature. Robert Roper's characters command us with their simplicity, truth and cruelty. He has caught, with amazing sureness and precision, the rhythms of a primitive town and of those who live off its faithless land, and almost survive. [information scanned from jacket BB]