Camptown

In 1847, at the Tipsy Toad Saloon in Camptown, Kentucky, Will Van Pelt shined the shoes of Abraham Lincoln and received for his efforts an IOU. Over the next 150 years, the residents of this fictional yet familiar Midwest area encounter other famous people-Stephen Foster, John L. Sullivan. But those encounters share the stage with the entanglements of small town commonfolk: George Freeman, a young slave boy who won his freedom riding a bob-tailed nag named Lucy to victory in a horse race; "Wooly Wanda" Listerman, the bearded lady; Merle Goodman, a Baptist prescher who let his desire for a young girl get the best of him; and Paul Parmele, whose family experienced a miracle when angels appeared in their Christmas tree. Kenn Grimes' "Camptown" stories present the presidential and the provincial, the renowned and the rustic, the champs and the churls, with the same inflinching honesty and humor. The sum of Grimes' sketches adds up to a portrait of the character of America's heartland, and of our human heart.