Dismembered

Tom Lake: VERNON - Nothing binds a town together like a powerful story: the Giants win the pennant, for example, or a mother wolf rescues twin boys from the riverbank, or a silversmith and a borrowed horse conspire to foil the Redcoats.

In this town, the story is broken.

The characters are not heroes. They are not even villains. They are merely conniving mercenaries with a tolerance for gore.

If you have heard of Vernon, population 780, an old steamboat port between the red hills of Alabama and the white shores of Florida's Emerald Coast, there is a good chance you have heard this story. To the outside world, it has become Vernon's master narrative.

Poor country folk get desperate. Poor country folk get an idea. Poor country folk buy insurance. Poor country folk fire guns at selves, blowing off hands or feet, and poor country folk get rich.