Billy Above the Roofs

Bob Ross writes with an authenticity as poetic and unforgiving as the Nebraska Sandhills themselves. The nine connected stories Billy Above the Roofs paint an indelible portrait of the life and times of one Billy Dixon in an era on the Great Plains not entirely bygone. From the first line of the prologue, “After Billy Dixon’s hilltop suicide,” which takes place as “the sun’s flat chin still rested on the horizon,” to the end of this remarkable book, we follow the protagonist to his death in the company of lovers and the inhabitants of Turtle Lodge, Nebraska, on a bluff overlooking the endless lands of the past.