The Love of a Loyal Woman

In three stories, The Love of a Loyal Woman, Billy McCoy extends his giant themes--the vagaries of love, the misplaced passion and loyalty that leads down unexpected paths, the disasters hovering beneath the surface of things, and the strange, often twisted motives and desires of the heart. At times chaos is skirted: a young woman fortunately confronts life's difficulties while serving a brief stint in jail. Still other times, a loving and selfless mother wants the best for her over indulged son, yet as it turns out, the son's true nature is revealed. In another story: a young woman finds in the span of twenty years that the cousin she adores, and who she hopes to encourage, cannot sustain himself, and she must learn to let go. The rich texture that gives Billy McCoy's work so vivid reflection of life is apparent in the title--loyal women are the essences of each of the stories--from the young woman with a cleft lip who finds peace in jail, to the spoiled young man who brings down his loving mother, to racial flagrant racial profiling-- these are stories that run the gauntlet of human drama.