The Hungry and the Haunted

From the author of The Mercy Seat and Fire in Beulah comes a new collection of six stories troubled by ghosts that linger in our present moment. Set primarily in eastern Oklahoma during the 1970s, The Hungry and the Haunted is Rilla Askew's testament to young women and other outsiders navigating relationships, social change, and the power of place during increasingly precarious times. Some haunted by ancient wrongs, others yearning to escape or reckoning with primal griefs, each character wrestles with the bonds that wound them and the places that keep them tethered to their roots. This collection is not to be missed by anyone interested in questions of what becomes of our stories as we struggle to write them ourselves.


Known for her award-winning historical fiction, Askew evokes with resonant period detail the lives of earlier generations in these stories that speak to our current era of fragility and change.