After the War by
Alice Adams is considered to be one of the major American writers of the last thirty years. Her stories appeared inThe New Yorkerfrom 1969 and 1995, as well as in twenty-two O. Henry Awards collections and several volumes ofBest American Short Stories.After the Waris her eleventh and final novel--the brilliant coda to a brilliant career. After the Warbegins where her acclaimed novelA Southern Exposureended: in the small Southern town of Pinehill during World War II. With all the insight and grace that have marked her writing, she brings us close to Cynthia and Harry Baird, transplanted Yankees who moved south from Connecticut during the Depression to find a simpler world for themselves and their daughter, Abigail. But life in Pinehill has become more difficult since the beginning of the war: with Harry off in London to do his share, Cynthia finds her life complicated not only by her own loneliness but also by a growing awareness of local racism and anti-Semitism, and by the rising national dread of Communism. And as Abigail heads off to college, where she faces all the traditional complications of youth, we are drawn into an America caught between past and future, and two generations forced to determine what they cherish and what they must leave behind. Alice Adams's depiction of her native South--full, rich, affectionate, and always one of her many strengths--is at its most subtle and engrossing inAfter the War.
The Bible Salesman by
When career criminal Preston Clearwater picks up hitchhiking Henry Dampier, an innocent 20-year-old Bible salesman, he immediately recognises him as just the associate he needs - one who will believe Clearwater is an FBI spy, one who will drive the cars Clearwater steals as he follows along at a safe distance.
Cold Mountain by
Cold Mountain is an extraordinary novel about a soldier's perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War. At once a magnificent love story and a harrowing account of one man's long walk home,Cold Mountain introduces a stunning new talent in American literature. Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather,Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman's odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they've been delivered. Charles Frazier reveals marked insight into man's relationship to the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great nineteenth century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change.Cold Mountain re-creates a world gone by that speaks eloquently to our time.
Creatures of Habit by
Jill McCorkle's new collection of twelve short stories is peopled with characters brilliantly like us-flawed, clueless, endearing. These stories are also animaled with all manner of mammal, bird, fish, reptile-also flawed and endearing. She asks, what don't humans share with the so-called lesser species? Looking for the answer, she takes us back to her fictional home town of Fulton, North Carolina, to meet a broad range of characters facing up to the double-edged sword life offers hominids. The insight with which McCorkle tells their stories crackles with wit, but also with a deeper-and more forgiving-wisdom than ever before. In Billy Goats, Fulton's herd of seventh graders cruises the summer nights, peeking into parked cars, maddening the town madman. In Monkeys, a widow holds her husband's beloved spider monkey close along with his deepest secrets. In Dogs, a single mother who works for a veterinarian compares him-unfavorably-with his patients. In Snakes, a seasoned wife sees what might have been a snake in the grass and decides to step over it. And, in the exquisite final story, Fish, a grieving daughter remembers her father's empathy for the ugliest of all fishes. The success behind Jill McCorkle's short stories-and her novels-is, as one reviewer noted, her skill as an archaeologist of the absurd, an expert at excavating and examining the comedy of daily life (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Yes, and also the tragedy.
Garden Spells by
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.... The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures. A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plantsfrom the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleysexcept for Claire's rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before. When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire's quiet life is turned upside downalong with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacyif they are ever to feel at home in Bascomor with each other. Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own....
A Land More Kind Than Home by
"Bold, daring, graceful, and engrossing." --Bobbie Ann Mason "This book will knock your socks off....A first novel that sings with talent." --Clyde Edgerton In his phenomenal debut novel--a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small North Carolina town--author Wiley Cash displays a remarkable talent for lyrical, powerfully emotional storytelling. A Land More Kind than Home is a modern masterwork of Southern fiction, reminiscent of the writings of John Hart (Down River), Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter), Ron Rash (Serena), and Pete Dexter (Paris Trout)--one that is likely to be held in the same enduring esteem as such American classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and A Separate Peace. A brilliant evocation of a place, a heart-rending family story, a gripping and suspenseful mystery--with A Land More Kind than Home, a major American novelist enthusiastically announces his arrival.
The Last Girls by
On a beautiful June day in 1965, a dozen girls-classmates at a picturesque Blue Ridge women's college-launched their homemade raft (inspired by Huck Finn's) on a trip down the Mississippi. It's Girls A-Go-Go Down the Mississippi read the headline in the Paducah, Kentucky, paper. Thirty-five years later, four of those "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time it's on the luxury steamboat, The Belle of Natchez, and there's no publicity. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the river the ashes of a fifth rafter-beautiful Margaret ("Baby") Ballou. Revered for her powerful female characters, here Lee Smith tells a brilliantly authoritative story of how college pals who grew up in an era when they were still called "girls" have negotiated life as "women." Harriet Holding is a hesitant teacher who has never married (she can't explain why, even to herself). Courtney Gray struggles to step away from her Southern Living-style life. Catherine Wilson, a sculptor, is suffocating in her happy third marriage. Anna Todd is a world-famous romance novelist escaping her own tragedies through her fiction. And finally there is Baby, the girl they come to bury-along with their memories of her rebellions and betrayals. THE LAST GIRLS is wonderful reading. It's also wonderfully revealing of women's lives-of the idea of romance, of the relevance of past to present, of memory and desire.
Look Back All the Green Valley by
With Look Back All the Green Valley, Fred Chappell brings to a close one of the most rewarding cycles of novels in recent memory. Now grown, Jess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to be with his ailing mother and to settle at last the family's accounts after the death of his father ten years ago. Established in Greensboro with a wife and the beginnings of a career as a poet, Jess has long been removed from his time in the hills.But cleaning out a secret workroom reunites Jess with tales of his youth and the spirit of his irrepressible father, Joe Robert Kirkman. A discovery he makes in his father's shed leads him back into the past-for in the dusty room he finds an unusual machine made of stovepipe and ceramic, and a handwritten map peppered with the names of several women.These clues help Jess uncover a part of his father's history he never knew: a quest through space and time in search of truth, beauty, and a perfect revenge.Rich in the storytelling traditions of Southern Appalachia, Fred Chappell's magical novel celebrates a way of life that has passed.Look Back All the Green Valley follows Chappell's three previous novels-Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You, Brighten the Corner Where You Are, and I Am One of You Forever-and confirms his status as one of our most treasured writers.
Nothing Gold Can Stay by
From Ron Rash, PEN / Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Serena, comes a new collection of unforgettable stories set in Appalachia that focuses on the lives of those haunted by violence and tenderness, hope and fear--spanning the Civil War to the present day. The darkness of Ron Rash's work contrasts with its unexpected sensitivity and stark beauty in a manner that could only be accomplished by this master of the short story form. Nothing Gold Can Stay includes 14 stories, including Rash's "The Trusty," which first appeared in The New Yorker.