Tales of Little Egypt

<p><em>Tales of Little Egypt </em>is a fictional account of small town America and the peculiar, ordinary, eccentric, sturdy, cunning, and contented characters who created it. Set in the years between the Civil War and the great Influenza Plague of 1918, this is a pageant of imaginary people—the narratives of a score of men, women, and children whose lives illustrate the immense changes and challenges of that turbulent era. This was a period of great events and outsized personalities: splendid World’s Fairs attended by millions, radical new inventions, devastating wars and violent revolutions; leaders like Theodore Roosevelt. But underneath were the people whose stories are as fascinating, troubled, compelling and triumphant as anything that has occupied the attention of historians. There was the town doctor, the local sheriff, the jeweler, the self-appointed matron of morality, a young black girl and her mother, a boy who ran off to the circus and many others: lovers, crim