Steve Yarbrough: Transplanted Mississippian

This chapter discusses Steve Yarbrough's fiction, which is often set in Mississippi, particularly in Indianola, where he grew up, or in the fictional town of Loring, its fictional near twin. Yarbrough fills his work with people who, if they ever leave home, must return to it. They don't necessarily return to the Eden they may think has been waiting for them, but they do return. In many ways they have never left, of course, for their home creates the context for the rest of their lives. This is evident in Yarbrough's first novel, The Oxygen Man (1999). Yarbrough's other novels include Visible Spirits (2001), The End of California (2006), and Safe from the Neighbors (2010).