Starting with his first novel, The Cherry Pit (1965), Donald Harington has concentrated his writings on his native Arkansas, especially the Ozark mountain region in the northwestern part of the state. In his second novel, Lightning Bug (1970), he introduced the semifictional hamlet of Stay More (sometimes called Stick Around: the name comes from the polite entreaty to guests to "stay more," even when the host is ready for solitude). Stay More is "a community of some 113 souls in the Ozark mountains of Newton County, south of the county seat, Jasper, and the lovely village of Parthenon, west of the village of Spunkwater, north of Demijohn, Hunton, and Swain, east of Sidehill and Eden." The villagers are genially referred to as "Stay Morons." In Harington's books all roads lead to Stay More, although physically it is nearly impossible to reach the village, set beyond pavement and modern transportation and sometimes...