The Wicked Road to Yam Junction

By Larry D Thacker

In the tiny, unincorporated town of Fetch, Tennessee, population 457 and falling, life is lived on "limited information". To the family of the young narrator, the world effectively ends at the county line. His grandfathers, Abe and Randall, along with his mother, Alice, live by a strict code: if you can't find it in Fetch, you don't need it. But for a boy with an imagination in "full throttle," the three-lane highway leading north toward the mysterious Yam Junction represents a "wicked road" filled with the very sins and secrets his elders preach against.Through a series of humorously interconnected stories, the secrets of Fetch begin to unravel. The narrator discovers his family's "holy" boycott of Wal-Mart is a facade hidden behind cupboards full of "Great Value" cereal. He watches as his friend Jerry, a tattoo artist who "couldn't draw a straight stickman," becomes an accidental sensation in the Knoxville art scene for his "intentional naivet ". From a preacher attempting to monetize a local sinkhole as a "Gate to Hell" to the fabrication of local legends to satisfy a middle-school project, these stories explore the eccentricities of Appalachian life.The Wicked Road to Yam Junction is a spirited collection that captures the tension between the safety of home and the pull of the horizon, proving that even the most "wicked" roads often lead us right back to the people we love.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1969421452
• ISBN13: 9781969421457
• Release Date: November 2026
• Publisher: Unsolicited Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"