Like many successful people, author Caleb Pirtle III has earned his stripes with hard work and years of pounding the keyboard, writing about the fragility and complexity of human behavior. His characters are unique and unforgettable. One woman easily comes to mind. Eudora Durant from Caleb’s Moon series. We are introduced to her in Backside of a Blue Moon. Here’s what I wrote about Caleb’s character: “Eudora Durant is dying too—not from disease, but from the slow drip, drip of a miserable marriage to a cheating, no-good, alcoholic S.O.B. named Washburn Durant. Her days are filled with back-breaking physical labor and her nights are full of Washburn’s drunken abuse. One night, Washburn hits her one time too many, and he finds himself facing the business end of his own shotgun. He runs, but Eudora and the shotgun are faster.” See what I mean. She’s relatable and morphs from weak and victimized to a powerful woman who decides to take matters into her own hands.
Fast Forward to 2022. In Caleb’s new book, Eulogy in Black and White, we meet another one of Caleb’s unusual and memorable characters. Graham Huston is a veteran of the wars in the Mid-East sandbox. After eight post-injury surgeries, Huston promptly returns the Purple Heart he earned and becomes a vagabond traveling down lonesome highways in America until he lights in Magnolia Bluff, a small town in the hill country of Central Texas. Every day, Huston walks miles to the local cemetery carrying a fistful of flowers, sits down, and has a conversation with PFC Freddy Millstone who died in a sweltering jungle in Vietnam. Huston didn’t know Freddy, but he thinks someone should remember the soldier’s ultimate sacrifice.
Magnolia Bluff town folk are having one massive, hysterical anxiety attack. Every year for the past eight years, someone has been murdered on May 23rd. As the day approaches, some even scedaddle out of town to avoid their own murder. Who will be next? My lips are sealed. You’ll have to buy the book to find out. It’s one of Caleb Pirtle’s finest and here’s how to get your copy.https://www.amazon.com/Eulogy-Black-White-Magnolia-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B09Z9VPJYH
KELLY MARSHALL NEWS 