Published in 1999 by Gnomon Press

In The Balm of Gilead Tree, acclaimed author and poet Robert Morgan presents a masterful collection of seventeen short stories—ten new and seven selected from earlier volumes—that illuminate the lives of working-class people in the American South, particularly in the Appalachian region. With lyrical precision and deep empathy, Morgan explores themes of hardship, resilience, and transformation across generations.

From the haunting historical imagination of “The Tracks of Chief de Soto” to the visceral immediacy of “The Ratchet,” where a truck driver faces a terrifying descent with failed brakes, Morgan’s stories are rich in sensory detail and emotional depth. Characters grapple with environmental peril, economic uncertainty, and the quiet dramas of rural life, all rendered with Morgan’s signature clarity and reverence for the natural world.

This collection affirms Morgan’s place as a vital voice in Southern literature, offering readers both the balm of storytelling and the grit of lived experience.

Robert Morgan grew up on a small farm in the Green River Valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, the setting of almost all his creative work. He has had four National Endowment for the Arts fellowships as well as Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships. He has also received the North Carolina Award for Literature, as well as the James B. Hanes Poetry Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is the author of ten volumes of poetry as well as his three well-received novels: The Hinterlands,The Truest Pleasure, and Gap Creek.