B. B. Garin's closely-observed and exuberant tales are inspired by itinerant guitar players and the women and men drawn to them and their songs. The collection opens and closes with encounters between vagabonds and reclusive loners-a tragedy-haunted barfly, the estranged son of a famous musician. Other stories depict a wanderer who only believes in "long roads and songs with swampy bass guitars," immigrant rock n' roll hipsters, and a slacker who murders a man for his song. From "The Last Ballad of Saddler Vance": There never was any deal with the devil. No crossroad's magic. No cat's guts or silver coins. No dapper man in a seersucker suit with a neat goatee and a faint cologne of brimstone. There was only me and Saddler Vance at the end of a rotting pier with the salt marsh sunset and my daddy's old service pistol. That's where I killed him. Killed him for a song.