Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the Navy, and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D.L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are. Hounded at every turn by scams, vigilantes, grievous loss, and unspeakable violence, Edgewater navigates the long road home, searching for a place that may be nothing but memory.
The Lost Country centers on Edgewater, who's recently been discharged from the Navy, and a one-armed conman named Roosterfish who takes him under his wing as they both search desperately for a forgotten past and a future that may never come. The Lost Country cements Gay as one of the strongest voices in Southern literature, alongside Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner.
Little Sister Death finds Gay exploring the horror genre, territory he last mined in Twilight (2006), which was hailed by Stephen King as the best book of the year. A retelling of Tennessee's famed myth of the Bell Witch, this gripping tale traces a series of ghostly encounters at a haunted manor over the course of two centuries.
In his third novel award-winning author William Gay is sure to astound listeners with his dark themes and memorable characters. When Kenneth and Corrie Tyler become suspicious of the town undertaker, they attempt to discover the truth. But what they find is far worse than they had feared.
The year is 1952, and E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after twenty years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded, his three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanizing alcoholic, Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mamma's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with the respect his age commands, and sees past all the hatred to realize the way it can posion a man's soul. It is ultimately the love of Raven Lee, a sloe-eyed beauty from another town, that gives Fleming the courage to reject this family curse.
Author William Gay is the winner of the 1999 William Peden Award and the 1999 James A. Michener Memorial Prize. In his debut collection, Gay brings to life 13 stories about a diverse group of colorful characters living in the fertile Tennessee country land.
William Gay's work has appeared in Harper's, The Georgia Review, and G.Q. Like Larry Brown, Gay creates deeply layered tales that plumb the depths of the human heart. The Long Home focuses on a volatile triangle of deception, love, and guilt. As Nathan Winer grows up in a rural Tennessee community, his life, and those closest to him, are touched by the evil that dwells in one ruthless and powerful man.
