Flatback Sally Country

<p>Rachel Custer's <em>Flatback Sally Country</em> is hard-hitting and harrowing and almost hypnotically beautiful in its deft singing of the stories of America's vast middle of the flyover land pinned beneath the derision of coastal elites. Personas like Tommy Two Fingers Old Maid and Flatback Sally herself tell us of lives lived alone behind / the turned back of the world nursing the desperate shame // of broken teeth of ugliness / that can't afford disguise. Think holler; think burnt-out spit-out coal town; think meth; think whole communities sunk into the grave-deep rut of poverty. Violence is done in this book to factory workers' bodies feeding [them]selves in pieces to machines to keep America's shelves stocked and to women especially <em>those</em> kinds of women like Sally so often hooked and gutted by men's wants and needs. <em>Flatback Sally Country</em> is a timely vitally important book by one of the most gifted young poets writing today. </p><p>   -Francesca Bell <em>What Small Sound</em> </p>