"Driving through a blinding dust storm in the rural Plains, Dog on Fire's narrator sees her brother standing on the side of the road holding a shovel. She knows she should stop. The dust swirling around her prevents her from seeing more than a few feet in front of her, but even if she does stop for her brother, he will not be there. He is already dead. In Dog on Fire, the people in a small farm town try to come to terms with family turmoil, past loves, and a mysterious death. Did the ditch digger die of a poisoned jello dart? Did Aphra, a local who was obsessed with the narrator's now dead brother, smother him literally with unwanted affection? Does his ghost inhabit the doorframe of the grain operation his sister runs? The narrator discovers far more than she wants to when her son, her brother's lookalike, is pursued by Aphra for a kiss. In this powerful novel of manners, good and bad, Terese Svoboda creates a fairytale, but too few are enchanted."-- Provided by publisher.