By turns comic, sad, and violent, Donald Harington's tenth novel is a masterful work, part American tall tale, part hillbilly Paradiso.

During World War II, real news is a rare commodity in the hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas. But twelve-year-old Dawny-inspired by his hero Ernie Pyle-finds enough local color to keep the townsfolk reading his weekly newspaper, the Stay Morning Star. Yet when soldiers come to occupy the remote hills of Stay More in training for an invasion of Japan, the world's war is brought closer to home, and the texture of rural life is irrevocably changed.