Larry Brown has been a force in American literature since taking critics by storm with his debut collection, <em>Facing the Music</em>, in 1988. His subsequent work—five novels, another story collection, and two books of nonfiction—continued to bring extraordinary praise and national attention to the writer <em>New York Newsday</em> called a "master."<br> <br> In November 2004, Brown sent the nearly completed manuscript of his sixth novel to his literary agent. A week later, he died of a massive heart attack. He was fifty-three years old.<br> <br> <em>A Miracle of Catfish</em> is that novel. Brown's trademarks—his raw detail, pared-down prose, and characters under siege—are all here. <br> <br> This beautiful, heartbreaking anthem to the writer's own North Mississippi land and the hard-working, hard-loving, hard-losing men it spawns is the story of one year in the lives of five characters—an old farmer with a new pond he wants stocked with baby catfish; a bankrupt fish pond stocker who secretly releases his forty-pound brood catfish into the farmer's pond; a little boy from the trailer home across the road who inadvertently hooks the behemoth catfish; the boy's inept father; and a former convict down the road who kills a second time to save his daughter.<br><br> That Larry Brown died so young, and before he could see<em> A Miracle of Catfish</em> published, is a tragedy. That he had time to enrich the legacy of his work with this remarkable book is a blessing.