The Chief of Rally Tree

DEBUT In this fiction debut from the winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Roal Bowman's life is usurped when his wife suddenly leaves; the last line of her note reading, "I do love you ever Dina." The story follows Roal, a mediocre professor in a college where he is best known as a fake Zen master who had once pretended to be Native American, his image further tainted when Dina runs away to help the famous Winter Patent, a man who had lived with wolves, on a project to embrace the consciousness of trees. Despite his desire to be a spiritual leader, Roal is lackluster and hardly influential. He doesn't truly know himself and, therefore, doesn't really know Dina. But he wants to know her, wants her back, and hopes to find her before she's discovered by others eager to locate Winter. More important, Roal must rethink his purpose in life.