From the Regal House website:
The twelve linked stories in McMullen Circle explore the intertwined lives of faculty families at the McMullen Boarding School in Tonola Falls, Georgia, in 1969–70. The school community is isolated and idyllic, yet issues of race and the Vietnam War still intrude. The stories in this collection ask what, or who, is a hero? Does heroism require physical prowess, or is there valor in a cafeteria worker enduring a cluttered, needy life with her four young sons (“Good Boys”), or an elderly school librarian caring for her disabled lesbian partner (“Twilight Song”)? In “Once and Always” a decorated World War II pilot feels his own hero status threatened when whites petition to have a black civil rights activist barred from burial in Arlington Cemetery. In “Wish I May, Wish I Might” a young African American girl finds the courage to assert her right to attend the all-white McMullen School. In “The Preferred Embodiment,” a headmaster realizes that his role as father-hero requires him to do more than simply not embarrass his child. In “The Stole,” “Things Summoned,” “Breaking Bread” and “The Walk,” two children learn the limitations, and the surprising extent, of their parents’ strength and integrity.
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