James Calemine's The Local Stranger is a collection of seven fictional short stories illustrated throughout by Calemine's signature gritty photographs taken with a Leica camera and presented as unfiltered as his writing.

Throughout this collection Calemine writes about the lives of unforgettable men and women: drifters, bartenders, addicts, lovers, musicians, hustlers and criminals. The stories transpire in southern cities and towns as the characters struggle with their pasts and future, their faith and their failures.

While the plots and characters in these stories are only be loosely intertwined, they are thematically connected where matters of the soul are at stake.