Title: The evening hour
Description: While Cole alternately attempts romance with two troubled women, he also spends most of his time with the elderly patients at the nursing home where he works, desperately trying to ignore the decay of everything and everyone around him. Only when a disaster befalls these mountains is Cole forced to confront his fears and, finally, take decisive action-if not to save his world, to at least save himself.
Subjects: Mountaintop removal mining, Mountain people, Mountain life, Fiction, Working poor, Choice (Psychology), Fiction, family life, Fiction, psychological, collection:edmund_white_award=finalist
Places: Appalachian Region, West Virginia