Deep in the folds of the Arkansas Ozarks lies the tiny village of Stay More, population 179. Free from the intrusions of the modern world, this rural town is a living snapshot of days gone by. It is a place of tin roofs and pie suppers, of dirt roads, clear creeks, and a swinging bridge. Stars and fireflies are all that light the evening sky, and the only radio is hidden in Latha Bourne's General Store.

Many travelers have searched for Stay More, but there is only one way to get there: through the fiction of Donald Harington. Harington has written ten Stay More novels, leading thousands of readers through the hills surrounding this mythical village, and introducing them to the charms of its eccentric population.

Harington's new novel, When Angels Rest continues the Stay More saga, as the isolated village copes with the violent intrusions of World War II. A twelve-year-old named Dawny is the hero of this bittersweet tale, and he records the changing texture of local life in his weekly newspaper, The Stay Morning Star. Real news is a rare commodity, but Dawny-inspired by his hero Ernie Pyle-finds enough local color to keep the townsfolk reading. One fixture of the paper is Dawny's regular report on the war between the Allies and the Axis, two roving bands of boys and girls whose fledgling identities are reflections of the global battles of World War II. They fight on the playground and compete in scrap drives and verbal jousts, but the tenor of their games changes as developments bring the world's war closer to home. As the ways of outsiders seep into the tiny hamlet's routines, the texture of rural life is irrevocably changed.

By turns comic, sad, and violent, When Angels Rest is a masterful work, part American tall tale, part hillbilly Paradiso. AUTHOR BIO: Donald Harington is an art history professor at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of one nonfiction book, Let Us Build Us a City, which won the Porter Prize for Literary Excellence, and ten novels in the Stay More saga. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife, Kim.