
The Way Things Always Happen Here
Stories
In his debut short-fiction collection, The Way Things Always Happen Here, Kevin C. Stewart takes his readers to the scene of a heinous murder, to the home of an alcoholic single mother, to the 1960s election campaign of JFK through West Virginia, and off the side of the New River Gorge Bridge. In these eight stories set in fictional Oak County in southern West Virginia, and one novella set in the Arkansas Ozarks, Stewart gives us characters who all love and hate where they’re from.
•the way things always happen here
•her
•sarah’s story
•debts
•red dog
•june hay
•the pillar of william’s grave
•margot
"These stories of hard realities and painfully won wisdom are absolutely jam-packed with those simmering, guarded secrets and dark desires we all share."
Chuck Kinder, author Snakehunter and Last Mountain Dancer
"Raw beauty is the heart of this collection where hope and despair mingle, where the mountains shelter and confine. Stewart renders this struggle and beauty in these stories that capture in fiction our many hard truths."
Jim Minick, Journal of Appalachian Studies





