Sallowsfield (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781680033571)

Wyatt W. Sallow, MBA--poet, business ethics professor, and coach of the 8th ranked collegiate chess team in East Texas--travels to the heart of northern England to trace his family origins in mundane Sallowsfield, only to find his supposed ancestry a mirage. He does have a real past, however: one that stalks him across the green hillsides in echoes of his catastrophic marriage, the lingering shadow of a lost child, and--there, in person, inexplicably emerging from the town's faux-Victorian train station--"X," the enigmatic object of his unrequited passion and a figure as perplexing as an algebraic variable. On his eight-day tour/pilgrimage/mock epic journey, Wyatt pursues the specter of his lost love and crosses paths with the citizens of this down-at-its-heels market town as they struggle to grasp the all-consuming obsessions, ghosts, and X-factors that confound their days. Thought-provoking yet dryly humorous, Sallowsfield weaves diverse elements into a story both light-hearted and philosophical, exploring along the way universal human touchstones of obsession, ruined love and the inexplicable mysteries that shape our lives.