not a study of his work; yet, to a greatrnextent, her father’s life was his work. Tornwrite a completely satisfying biographyrnof Christopher Dawson, one must presentrna more satisfying look at his oeuvre.rnWhat Mrs. Scott gives us is certainlyrnadequate, as far as it goes. Onernsimply wishes she had gone further. It isrna tribute to Dawson that we would likernto see his work discussed more fully; itrnis an even greater one to Mrs. Scottrnthat she is the one we would like to seerndoit.rnMichael Lee Kelly recently earned hisrnPh.D. in philosophy at Florida StaternUniversity in Tallahassee.rnGloomy Watersrnby Gregory McNameernProperties of Bloodrnby William MillsrnFavetteville: University of ArkansasrnPress; 112 pp., $19.95rnRivers exercise a strange pull on thernhuman imagination; they workrntheir way into every art form, fromrnBernini’s Renaissance sculptures ofrnthe great flows of Europe to MikhailrnSholokhov’s social-realist novels of Cossackrnlife along the Don to Basho’s haikurncelebrating the waterways of northernrnJapan. In this country no region lias takenrnto rivers quite like the South: there isrnscarcely a Southern novel or song inrnwhich the Mississippi or the Atchafalayarnor the Scwancc or some other flood doesrnnot figure somehow.rnWilliam Mills’ Properties of Blood, arnbook of short stories that are set in therncentral-southern states of Missouri,rnArkansas, and Louisiana, continues therntradition. Its characters have dark waterwaysrnat their shoulders; their conversationsrnare punctuated by ripples andrnthe ker-plunking of errant frogs; theirrndays are marked by fishing trips and coldrnbeers under bankside groves. Propertiesrnof Blood continues another tradition,rntoo: the unremitting gloominess forrnwhich so much Southern writing isrnknown.rnMills’ people are alternately professors,rnmedical professionals, and what it isrnnow politically incorrect to term whitetrashrntypes with no isible means of support.rnAll his women have large breastsrn(the one fixation Mills exhibits in thisrncollection, the narration of which isrnlargely neutral in tone and vastly morernbookish and intellectual than his charactersrnthemselves), many of them wearrnstretch pants and bouffant hairdos, andrnthey maybe possess a high school diplomarnbetween every two or three of them.rnJust about all, male or female, wellheeledrnor dirt-poor, are downright miserable.rnHow could thc not icld gloom? Butrnfor all that. Mills knows how to tell arnstory. The collection’s opening, “SweetrnTickfaw Run Softly, Till I End MyrnSong,” is an effective gaze into the emotionalrnabyss of divorce and the subsequentrnadjustment of altering old habitsrnto the rhythms of new jjartners, of raisingrnchildren that are not one’s own, ofrnaverting the curious questions of familyrnand friends. Mills’ words are well chosenrnand full of reference, e’en if they sometimesrnpeek into corners that aren’t openrnto view in polite company: “ThoughrnCarlisle had no children, he thought hernunderstood Lot’s difficulties with hisrndaughters. Like most men, as he hadrnLIBERAL ARTSrnINSENSITIVITY ON THE LEETrnRuss Feingold, a new United States senator from Wisconsin, “trades his wing-tips forrngolf spikes and takes to the links” once a year to host the Edmund Fitzgerald GolfrnTournament, reported the Milwaukee journal last November. The tournament,rnwhich aims to be the last of each golf season, takes its name from the tragic Lake Superiorrnshipwreck of November 10, 1975. Wisconsin’s recently elected ultra-liberal senatorrnreportedly jokes annually about the disaster, which left 29 sailors dead and subsequentlyrninspired the ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the EdmundrnFitzgerald.”rngotten older he had to account for hisrnlust for gids who had not yet crossed thernGreenwich Mean Line of Womanhood.”rnAlthough in this and other storiesrnMills tends to stack epigrammaticrnsentences one atop the other like loosernboards, he surely holds your attention.rnThis is a book that admits little of thernexistence of cities, and thus a pleasantrnrural departure from the usual run ofrnclaustrophobic cosmopolitanism foundrnin so many collections of short fiction.rnMills’ “Belle Slough” is one of the bestrnhunting stories to hae appeared in arnlong while, ranking near Hemingway,rnTom McGuane, and Jim Harrison’s bestrnmoments, perfectly evoking the feel of arnSouthern hardwood forest. In the religiouslyrncharged “An Imitation,” Millsrnoffers a superb (and nostalgia-inducing,rnfor anyone who grew up in the South asrnI did) depiction of a Sunday dinner inrnDixie, with its mounds of meats andrnfowl, five kinds of vegetables and asrnmany pies, a “hummock of rice, and arnquivering mound of cranberry jelly lookingrnnervous before what was to come.”rnAt the end of the mouth-watering talernone doesn’t even mind so much Mills’rnlikeniirg of the meal to a medieval Passionrnplay, although the point is a littlernforced. “A Marquis” is a superb inquiryrninto unschooled avarice and crushed ambitionrnas seen in the sorry life of a Cajunrnriverside restaurateur, as authenticallyrnrendered as a Walker Percy hero.rnWilliam Mills knows the territoryrnwhereof he writes; this is not the productrnof a transplanted Iy Leaguer atrnI .ouisiana State, but of a homeboy. I lisrnstories resonate with the right detail,rnsuch as this spot-on description of thernMississippi Delta in wintertime: “In thisrnflat countr}’ there were no wild mountainsrnunchanged by the seasons, rrorrneven ant snow to cover the dead ocherousrnland. What broke the dullness werernthe open sores of greasy-walled fillingrnstations cluttered with piles of old tiresrnand tubes and their ESSO signs thatrnflapped in the Fcbruar- wind.” Thosernstories are populated b- real people inrnwhose kitchens you can smell gumborncooking, in whose voices vou can hearrnthe twang of the old Scottish lowlands,rnin whose li’es ‘ou can sense the weightrnof history—and always the tug that thernnearby rivers ceaselessly exert.rnGregory McNamee is the author ofrnChrist oir the Mount of Olives (BrokenrnMoon Press), a book of short stories.rn36/CHRONICLESrnrnrn