Goin' Through the Motions: Last Renderin's from a Quester and Rounder

Goin' Through the Motions: Last Renderin's of a Questor and Rounder, most of which is interior monologue, employs a stylized dialect best described as "Southern Mountain English." In 1984, terminally ill and confined to a VA hospital, John Henry Shields reviews his life.

Prelude, a dialogue between John Henry's son Martin and his wife in 2012, opens the novel. The Prologue to Part One, presents John Henry on a day in 1932, when he undergoes an epiphany that sets him on his life's quest to l...