In a séance-lit blend of literary prank and gothic afterlife, Jap Herron unfolds as the supposed posthumous fiction of Mark Twain, dictated through a planchette by Emily Grant Hutchings and Mrs. Lola V. Hays. Twain's spirit emerges witty, exacting, and gloriously unedited, refusing to have his grammar smoothed, his profanity softened, or his punctuation "corrected," even as he drives the women and Hutchings's husband through comic, frustrating sessions of transmission, revision, and interruption. The result is both a supernatural claim and a celebration of authorial voice: a story that insists its creator still speaks. Within that frame, the novel follows Jap in Bloomtown, where a small-town newspaper office becomes a center of civic upheaval, local color, and emotional growth. Jap's fiery writing helps spur disaster-stricken townsfolk into rebuilding, while his own life changes through responsibility, grief, and first love. As Bloomtown transforms into a booming railroad town, Ellis Hinton's failing health, his farewell, and the handoff of the paper deepen the novel's themes of sacrifice, loyalty, community, and the painful cost of progress. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.