Texas

A majority of the stories in the collection take place in Texas, including "Glow Hunter," "Foxes," "The Soft No," "Fiddlebacks," and "Starlite." The author, Kimberly King Parsons, grew up in Lubbock, Texas. In "Glow Hunter," Bo and Sara are driving through rural Texas, the "worst parts of this state," including "the bat caverns and the toilet seat museum" (34) while looking for mushrooms. In the area where they finally find them, Sara declares, "It looks like chain-saw psychos hang out here, haunted barns looming in the distance" (52). "Fiddlebacks" takes place in a small Texas town where church is the only social event, and the story is filled with evocative descriptions of the insects that make their way into the houses: "Texas crazies nested in the wall sockets, eating wires...rovers and pharaohs in our potted plants, acrobats with their heart-shaped butts, plus ghosts...pale-headed and harmless but with a...