Sweethearts of the Rodeo — Lydia Peelle

"Lydia Peelle has given us a collection of stories so artfully constructed and deeply imagined they read like classics. It marks the beginning of what will surely be a long and beautiful career." -- Ann Patchett

In Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, Lydia Peelle brings together eight brilliant stories -- two of which won Pushcart Prizes and one of which won an O. Henry Prize -- that peer straight into the human heart. In startling and original prose, she examines lives derailed by the loss of a vital connection to the land and to the natural world of which they are a part.

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing conveys an almost Faulknerian ache for the pre-modern South, for a landscape and a way of life lost to the ravages of money and technology.