The Drought

Welcome to Junction, Texas Population: 626 and steadily declining Odd things have been happening around town. Hugh McManus went out to one of his grazing pastures and shot the better part of a fine herd before shooting himself. Luke Casteel crawled into a drainage pipe and never came back. A herd of wild javelina attacked and killed Rod Sawyer. And the thing is, the dying isn't nearly done. Jared Riley knows there's something sinister about the heat. It's got people acting crazy and it's got him hearing things. A voice keeps whispering, "It's gonna get mighty hot. Yes sir we like our meatloaf and taters well done, served up pipin' hot." Convinced the heat is tracking them, picking them off one by one, he sets off to find help. Trouble is, the people who have the answers are more dangerous than the heat. Driven by strong characters and a twisting plot, THE DROUGHT delves into the supernatural world where ghosts roam the landscape and a voodoo curse floats on the wind.

From Publishers Weekly

In the small Texas community of Junction, a boy named Barry Tanner steals an irreplaceable piece of sports memorabilia: a baseball from the 1975 World Series between Boston and Cincinnati. His friend Luke Casteel—unaware of the ball's value—tosses it into a drainage pipe, only to chase after the baseball when he learns its worth. But Luke never re-emerges from the drainage pipe. The strange tragedies affecting the town don't end there: two hunters targeting javelina find the tables turned when the wild pigs atypically turn violent and claim one of their lives. The evil stalking Junction may be linked to a voodoo campaign of terror in Reserve, La., which is plagued by the same devastating drought as Junction. Fulton's prose often scintillates ("The drought entered quietly, wreaking havoc with the spindly fingers of a miser, its magnitude measured in negatives like lack, want and deficiency"), but the gore is often needlessly explicit and the characters underdeveloped.

About the Author

Patricia Fulton lives with her husband and two kids in Roswell, Georgia. She lived in Texas during the 1998 drought and witnessed Lake Arlington evaporate. The heat left a lasting impression. Her creative nonfiction has won three awards and her story, 612 West Maitland was selected for publication in O' Georgia! A Collection of Georgia's Newest and Most Promising Writers. The Drought is her first novel.

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