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The Lost Country
Ten years after it was first announced, Dzanc is proud to deliver the lost novel from a master of the Southern Gothic—the work William Gay fans have anticipated for a decade.
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.
Hailed as “a seemingly effortless storyteller” by the New York Times Book Review and “a writer of striking talent” by the Chicago Tribune, William Gay, with this long-awaited novel, secures his place alongside Faulkner, O’Connor, and McCarthy as one of the greatest novelists in the Southern Gothic tradition.
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.
Hailed as “a seemingly effortless storyteller” by the New York Times Book Review and “a writer of striking talent” by the Chicago Tribune, William Gay, with this long-awaited novel, secures his place alongside Faulkner, O’Connor, and McCarthy as one of the greatest novelists in the Southern Gothic tradition.
368 pages, ebook
First published July 10, 2018
113 people are currently reading
1790 people want to read
About the author
William Gay
36 books537 followersWilliam Elbert Gay was the author of the novels Provinces of Night, The Long Home, and Twilight and the short story collection I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down. He was the winner of the 1999 William Peden Award and the 1999 James A. Michener Memorial Prize and the recipient of a 2002 Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
June 27, 2018
A heavy dose of Southern Gothic, even for someone who enjoys the genre. Raw and gritty and sometimes gruesome things along the way, but the descriptions, the beautiful language made up for what seemed a bit exaggerated. At times it felt a little too much with everything you’d possibly expect - con men, bootleg whisky, healing tents with cries of salvation in the middle of the night, sad sack characters, poverty, abused women along the way and yes there was a snake too and again a lot of drinking. It starts out in Memphis in 1955 and we meet characters on their own journey, simultaneously, each with their own burdens and flaws, and hopes, as I waited for paths to cross. The narratives separated only by paragraph. Billy Edgewater, out of the Navy with dreams about his past turned into nightmares at times, trying to make it home across Tennessee to see his dying father to make amends- maybe - I couldn’t really be sure if this is what he wanted. Roosterfish , a con man on the road, himself conned at one point - kharma, maybe. Bradshaw, Sudy and a host of characters and sometimes it felt like too many.
There wasn’t much of a plot, just what seemed like a series of events, and I kept hoping that the journey would speed up and we’d get to their destinations. But at some point I kept thinking about what most of us have heard at some time or another in our lives about how it’s the journey that’s important and not the destination. The writing, the fabulous descriptions - that’s what I liked the most about this book . This posthumously published novel by Gay definitely has made me want to read his earlier books. Here’s a bit of the writing that had me rereading passages just because:
“Ominous lightening flickered briefly luminescent in the southwest, flickered as if in set relay up and down layered clouds. Then thunder rolled hollowly, a premature dusk fell on the land.”
“When he came out of the woods onto the roadbed there was already a faint roseate glow in the east and he went on toward it through the first tentative bird sings. The world was awakening.” ( Roseate - I love this word!)
“To forgive things said and done to him. But deeds and words had a permanence he hadn’t been aware of and it was easy to be distracted by life in its infinite and beguiling variety.”
I received an advanced copy of this book from Dzanc Books through Edelweiss.
April 9, 2021
”The day draws a shade
Pulls the thread of your frayed lace undone,
It falls like the evenings
That charm then devour their young—
The face of the moon
On the river will shiver and run,
From belief to surrender
And I want you to lead me on
“This is my body-
Already broken for thee,
The black coal at my soul not a diamond
But cracked open and free—
The dark rushing river sweeps
Pushing away and along,
Like light through the pines
And I want you to lead me on”
--“Lead Me On”, Joe Henry, Songwriters: Joe Henry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usRwl...
A journey through time and place, beginning in 1955 Memphis, Tennessee, by a then still young Billy Edgewater, on his way back home after being discharged from the Navy.
”This was Memphis, Tennessee, the middle of April in 1955, washedout sunlight running on the storefront glass like luminous water.”
His father is dying, and it’s a distance from Memphis to the place in eastern Tennessee where his father hangs on, barely, by a thread. And while Edgewater complains about the difficulties he is having getting there, but when it comes to acting on it, his decisions most often come at an unexpected cost, the obstacles he faces send him hither and yon, anywhere and everywhere but, it seems, to where he believes he is headed.
”There was everywhere a sooty despairing dreariness, Edgewater grew restless, he felt an embryonic need to be elsewhere.”
Bad weather, bad men, bad decisions and bootleg liquor abound, and a host of memorable characters grace these pages, but when Edgewater gets a ride from Roosterfish the trouble is doubled, and Edgewater is led even further astray and away from his destination. Roosterfish uses his charisma to con people to raise funds for the two of them, but that just leads them down another path destined for trouble. Add in other characters, the”congenitally disaffected,” the drunks, a place where menace and misfortune are just a part of life to be borne.
This is the first of William Gay’s novels that I’ve read, a posthumously published one, and I regret waiting this long to become familiar with this author – but there are many who sing praises of his stories, and more books of his for me to read.
I loved this, a Southern gothic tale, told with a hushed sense of reverence for the land, and for this life, filled with a host of mischievous, destitute and lonesome characters, with sorry pasts to leave behind, and dreams of a better life to hold onto. I loved the writing in this, it’s classicly Southern Gothic, filled with beautiful prose, and then the next sentence might contain a sentence like: ”We ort to do this more often. A nice balance between the two keeps this moving along effortlessly, but I confess to tarrying a bit now and then to re-read a particularly lovely section.
Recommended
Published: 10 Jul 2018
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Dzanc Books / Ingram Publisher Services
December 27, 2018
Tennessee 1955. For true lovers of Southern Gothic who are into all out dirty and gritty. This is filled with miscreants, shrill harridans, peckerwoods, and ne'er-do-wells. Those old tent revivals, behold the feverish eyes of true believers as they are held sway to the preacher with the crazy eyes and his dire promises of fire and brimstone to all sinners. Bootleg whiskey, runnin' it and drinkin' it. One who uses a log for a pillow beneath an unforgiving moon.
Roosterfish, a one-armedbandit conman rides the country roads in his old Studebaker, on the prowl for the next sucker, preying on the unwary, the foolish, and the ones who want something for nothing. He can be whatever is needed, barn painter, exterminator, a general factotum, or a salesman of magazine "prescriptions". Someone needs to turn the tables on this reprobate. Mayhap they will.
How is it that William Gay was able to make the '...smells of deliberate ruin' so delectable? May he rest in peace, his own 'silence inviolate'.
Roosterfish, a one-armed
How is it that William Gay was able to make the '...smells of deliberate ruin' so delectable? May he rest in peace, his own 'silence inviolate'.
July 17, 2018
4 brilliant, Southern Gothic stars to The Lost Country! 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙
Thank you to my friend, Marialyce, for recommending William Gay’s books to me and telling me about this new release. I was not aware when I downloaded it that the author passed away several years ago, and this previously unpublished novel was discovered among other works.
Billy Edgewater’s father is terminally ill, and while Billy has been the black sheep of the family, he is desperate to travel home to see his father. He hitchhikes to East Tennessee, and along the way, he meets several wily, unsavory, predatory characters.
All the unfortunate things that could possibly happen along the way do. Billy wants nothing more than to make it home in time to have last words with his father, but is “home” a figment of his imagination, or a place long forgotten since he left?
The Lost Country is dark, as Southern Gothic tales are. It is gritty and grisly, and in contrast to that is the most alluring writing. I would read a sentence over and over again to absorb it all and admire the nuance. The prose manages to be sparse and so deliciously intense and descriptive at the same time. Highly recommend!
Thank you to Dzanc Books and Edelweiss for the complimentary copy. The Lost Country is available now.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
Thank you to my friend, Marialyce, for recommending William Gay’s books to me and telling me about this new release. I was not aware when I downloaded it that the author passed away several years ago, and this previously unpublished novel was discovered among other works.
Billy Edgewater’s father is terminally ill, and while Billy has been the black sheep of the family, he is desperate to travel home to see his father. He hitchhikes to East Tennessee, and along the way, he meets several wily, unsavory, predatory characters.
All the unfortunate things that could possibly happen along the way do. Billy wants nothing more than to make it home in time to have last words with his father, but is “home” a figment of his imagination, or a place long forgotten since he left?
The Lost Country is dark, as Southern Gothic tales are. It is gritty and grisly, and in contrast to that is the most alluring writing. I would read a sentence over and over again to absorb it all and admire the nuance. The prose manages to be sparse and so deliciously intense and descriptive at the same time. Highly recommend!
Thank you to Dzanc Books and Edelweiss for the complimentary copy. The Lost Country is available now.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
September 29, 2018
I wonder what it is about the Southern gothic style that appeals to me so much. What is my fascination with the grotesque, the derelict? What is it about old hateful crones, psychotic evangelists, desperate waitresses who work in woe-begotten diners on the side of the highway? What is it about the crazed bootlegger or the woman adorned with nothing but her goiter and a grin?
The relentless poverty and decay, the men in faded overalls, the constant drinking of whisky - well, this recipe doesn't exactly welcome one with open arms. But it has me, rapt.
I'm sure it's the darkness permeating the stories that lures me in. But William Gay keeps me in by how he describes such a world of brutal desolation, and still manages to evoke beauty. What a true artist this man is.
After I read William Gay's Twilight some months ago, I was completely enamoured. And, grief stricken. Because he died, and that means I will never get to write mylove fan letter to him, something I really would have done had he been there to receive it. I sensed he would have been someone worth knowing. This guy hung drywall for a living, plotting pages of prose during the day and writing it out at night. He wrote for his whole adult life, and was only first published at the age of 59.
I was in my happy place reading this book. I should mention though, these pages aren’t nearly as ‘tight’, plot-wise, as Twilight. Some might say not a lot happens, and they would be right, sorta. I’m not sure if that’s a deliberate style on the part of the author or if it’s a function of the posthumous publishing. But it has a far slower, philosophical feel to it, that might not work for some readers. For me, it was a pleasure.
Billy Edgewater, our protagonist, begins a journey back to his home, where his father is on his deathbed. He’s alone and hasn’t got transportation or means. He’s like one of those old-fashioned hobos, minus the kerchief tied on to the end of a stick. He stumbles along a remarkable amount of adventure and meets some fabulous characters on the way, including likeable con man Roosterfish and troublemaker Bradshaw. He meets a few women too.
A double helping of the Southern gothic here, written by the best. It touches on fate and the inevitability of life, which is often pretty bleak. But I kept turning the pages because William Gay has a way of showing that the world is still beautiful, even when broken.
The relentless poverty and decay, the men in faded overalls, the constant drinking of whisky - well, this recipe doesn't exactly welcome one with open arms. But it has me, rapt.
I'm sure it's the darkness permeating the stories that lures me in. But William Gay keeps me in by how he describes such a world of brutal desolation, and still manages to evoke beauty. What a true artist this man is.
After I read William Gay's Twilight some months ago, I was completely enamoured. And, grief stricken. Because he died, and that means I will never get to write my
I was in my happy place reading this book. I should mention though, these pages aren’t nearly as ‘tight’, plot-wise, as Twilight. Some might say not a lot happens, and they would be right, sorta. I’m not sure if that’s a deliberate style on the part of the author or if it’s a function of the posthumous publishing. But it has a far slower, philosophical feel to it, that might not work for some readers. For me, it was a pleasure.
Billy Edgewater, our protagonist, begins a journey back to his home, where his father is on his deathbed. He’s alone and hasn’t got transportation or means. He’s like one of those old-fashioned hobos, minus the kerchief tied on to the end of a stick. He stumbles along a remarkable amount of adventure and meets some fabulous characters on the way, including likeable con man Roosterfish and troublemaker Bradshaw. He meets a few women too.
A double helping of the Southern gothic here, written by the best. It touches on fate and the inevitability of life, which is often pretty bleak. But I kept turning the pages because William Gay has a way of showing that the world is still beautiful, even when broken.
August 9, 2022
This is the last novel published by William Gay but possibly the first novel he ever wrote.
Told in a series of vignettes, the novel is about a young man who has been a grave disappointment to his family back home along the Cumberland Plateau in Far Eastern Tennessee, just released from the Navy or maybe just the brig and hitch-hiking home to Monteagle, Tennessee from Long Beach, California.
The book itself starts out in 1955. In Memphis and from there all points east.
It's by turns mournful, humorous, and exciting.
People pass through the main character's life if he's not busy passing through theirs.
He aligns himself with an unlikely pair of scoundrels, cards right out of a crazy deck. Their get-rich-quick cons and resulting misadventures make up the majority of the book.
If you enjoy Larry Brown or Tom Franklin, you'll have a fine time with this.
Hell, I'm not going to beg you to read this novel.
Do what you want.
I don't get paid for recommending the books I've enjoyed.
Update: in Stories From The Attic there is a wonderful closing section written by various friends, fans, and editors about how they collectively reassembled William Gay’s novels published posthumously.
This novel is one of those. An amazing task as Gay’s novels & stories were handwritten-mostly in spiral bound notebooks and required a great deal of endless scrutinizing.
Man. I can’t believe I have to reread this. It will be worth the trip. I look forward to it.
Told in a series of vignettes, the novel is about a young man who has been a grave disappointment to his family back home along the Cumberland Plateau in Far Eastern Tennessee, just released from the Navy or maybe just the brig and hitch-hiking home to Monteagle, Tennessee from Long Beach, California.
The book itself starts out in 1955. In Memphis and from there all points east.
It's by turns mournful, humorous, and exciting.
People pass through the main character's life if he's not busy passing through theirs.
He aligns himself with an unlikely pair of scoundrels, cards right out of a crazy deck. Their get-rich-quick cons and resulting misadventures make up the majority of the book.
If you enjoy Larry Brown or Tom Franklin, you'll have a fine time with this.
Hell, I'm not going to beg you to read this novel.
Do what you want.
I don't get paid for recommending the books I've enjoyed.
Update: in Stories From The Attic there is a wonderful closing section written by various friends, fans, and editors about how they collectively reassembled William Gay’s novels published posthumously.
This novel is one of those. An amazing task as Gay’s novels & stories were handwritten-mostly in spiral bound notebooks and required a great deal of endless scrutinizing.
Man. I can’t believe I have to reread this. It will be worth the trip. I look forward to it.
August 1, 2018
A startling reminder of why I read so much - ever seeking gems like this novel. I'd pitch it as a blend of McCarthy's 'Suttree' and Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. As a writer, to my eye, Gay mastered it all: the poetry, insight, story, comedy and tragedy, the tremendous characters that make you ashamed of humanity but still admire it.
The story behind this book's discovery is extraordinary too. Gay died in 2012 and weeks before his death, he couldn't find the next novel he intended for publication - this one, written in the 70s. The manuscript's notebooks were found in his home, then the manuscript typed by his daughter in the 70s was later discovered in several boxes in the roof-space of the cabin he'd once lived in. The last section of the book was found behind a piece of sheet-rock. The disparate, unnumbered typed sheets, filmed with a rime of dust, were then pieced together painstakingly and cross-referenced with the notebooks, by family and friends (mainly J. M. White who tells this extraordinary story, of a masterpiece that came close to oblivion, in the Dzanc edition).
Gay wasn't published until his 50s but had been writing prose as magnificent as this from his twenties - beggars belief. As if to pile on the misfortune, his publisher went under shortly after his death. This game deals bad hands but this is one of the worst I've come across.
The silver lining is that during the examination, or excavation, of his "papers", four novels and one more short story collection were found. I assume one of those was 'Little Sister Death', and maybe another 'Stoneburner' (no UK release so I missed that, his first novel, and the only one I haven't read), so there should be three more books coming.
Book of the year for me so far, and the best William Gay book I've read.
The story behind this book's discovery is extraordinary too. Gay died in 2012 and weeks before his death, he couldn't find the next novel he intended for publication - this one, written in the 70s. The manuscript's notebooks were found in his home, then the manuscript typed by his daughter in the 70s was later discovered in several boxes in the roof-space of the cabin he'd once lived in. The last section of the book was found behind a piece of sheet-rock. The disparate, unnumbered typed sheets, filmed with a rime of dust, were then pieced together painstakingly and cross-referenced with the notebooks, by family and friends (mainly J. M. White who tells this extraordinary story, of a masterpiece that came close to oblivion, in the Dzanc edition).
Gay wasn't published until his 50s but had been writing prose as magnificent as this from his twenties - beggars belief. As if to pile on the misfortune, his publisher went under shortly after his death. This game deals bad hands but this is one of the worst I've come across.
The silver lining is that during the examination, or excavation, of his "papers", four novels and one more short story collection were found. I assume one of those was 'Little Sister Death', and maybe another 'Stoneburner' (no UK release so I missed that, his first novel, and the only one I haven't read), so there should be three more books coming.
Book of the year for me so far, and the best William Gay book I've read.
March 10, 2018
William Gay fully immerses our senses in his posthumueously published novel The Lost Country.
The novel exposes us to a deliciously dark southern underbelly, one that, when paired with its sparse, lean prose and quiet intensity, becomes an incredibly mesmerising story full of loners, con-men, and rascally down-and-outers who emphatically capture our attention.
The novel exposes us to a deliciously dark southern underbelly, one that, when paired with its sparse, lean prose and quiet intensity, becomes an incredibly mesmerising story full of loners, con-men, and rascally down-and-outers who emphatically capture our attention.
November 24, 2025
For the longest time, I've wanted to read William Gay's novel, Twilight. But I can never seem to find it, so I settled for The Lost Country instead. And boy, was I as disappointed as my father was when I started growing my hair and wearing bracelets.
I would wager that there are at least fifty percent too many words in this book. It's like someone (I'm not saying it was Billy, because I know this was published posthumously, so maybe it was some other jackass adding to it) looked at what was probably a really good, well-written story and said, "You know what this needs? More words!" Then, said jackass, got out their well-used thesaurus and started adding completely superfluous, unwarranted, irrelevant, redundant, gratuitous, non-essential, and absolutely needless words.
And maybe that's just Bill's style of writing. I don't know; this is my first, and probably last, experience with Mr. Gay. The whole thing was an overwritten and plotless mess. I get it that it wasn't meant to have a plot. It was about the journey, not the destination. I get it. But the journey sucked.
Maybe Bill never meant for it to be published. Maybe there was a reason it was still unfinished and tucked in a desk drawer at the time of his death. Maybe people just need to let the dead rest in peace and not try to capitalize on it.
I would wager that there are at least fifty percent too many words in this book. It's like someone (I'm not saying it was Billy, because I know this was published posthumously, so maybe it was some other jackass adding to it) looked at what was probably a really good, well-written story and said, "You know what this needs? More words!" Then, said jackass, got out their well-used thesaurus and started adding completely superfluous, unwarranted, irrelevant, redundant, gratuitous, non-essential, and absolutely needless words.
And maybe that's just Bill's style of writing. I don't know; this is my first, and probably last, experience with Mr. Gay. The whole thing was an overwritten and plotless mess. I get it that it wasn't meant to have a plot. It was about the journey, not the destination. I get it. But the journey sucked.
Maybe Bill never meant for it to be published. Maybe there was a reason it was still unfinished and tucked in a desk drawer at the time of his death. Maybe people just need to let the dead rest in peace and not try to capitalize on it.
October 18, 2018
William Gay was a master, and if you haven't sampled one of his books, people - please do. May I recommend, however, that it miiiiight not be this one to begin with. The Lost Country had been promised to Gay's publisher by spring 2012 (around the same time he passed away), but the truth is that between the previous year of seizures and a heart attack which required EMTs to bag him and resuscitate him, William forgot where he'd put the full manuscript.
What this book is, then, is the compilation of over 60 notebooks of handwritten sections, unnumbered and partly numbered typewritten sections (from the 1970s and found in a big rubber tub behind some sheetrock in the attic of Gay's former home).
Sonny Brewer and other writer friends of Williams were able to use a synopsis sheet that William had composed for the publisher as a guide, and they sewed this thing together like a quilt. The problem is, with so many writers typing up sections, it is in need of editing in a bad way. The words fecund, succubus, fetid, undertaker and others - juicy terms if there ever were ones - are repeated over and over. The story goes on and on and on.
Had William lived on and submitted this through the normal processes, I'd likely be reeling for it. Fans of his (pick me, pick me!) will notice the phrase "he went on" used periodically, perhaps an homage to Twilight. There will also be mention of some odd fellow one of the characters meets while in jail...you will recognized this guy immediately!
The story is basically one of a journey homeward by a veteran, a sailor now released and meandering home to a frustrated sister and dying father. Along the way, he encounters two men who become his companions for a time and each has their own storied past. Descriptions of the country side and the road traveled are gorgeous, and strange little anecdotes seem true slices of life...a passing car of snotty young girls who wouldn't dare to help a handsome young hitchhiker but are glad to laugh at him - just before their car rounds the bend and lethally collides head on with a wagon of Mennonites. Was he truly unlucky that the girls didn't stop to pick him up?
There are themes and anecdotes in The Lost Country that I bumped into while reading The Long Home, Twilight, and Little Sister Death. They are similar stories - a slapstick hog-wrestling scene, for example - that are very close to some in Provinces of Night. If you've never read these other stories, this will not bother you, but I'm of a mind to stick to whatever and everything William Gay published before his death. Well intentioned as they were, his friends could not do this man's writing justice.
What this book is, then, is the compilation of over 60 notebooks of handwritten sections, unnumbered and partly numbered typewritten sections (from the 1970s and found in a big rubber tub behind some sheetrock in the attic of Gay's former home).
Sonny Brewer and other writer friends of Williams were able to use a synopsis sheet that William had composed for the publisher as a guide, and they sewed this thing together like a quilt. The problem is, with so many writers typing up sections, it is in need of editing in a bad way. The words fecund, succubus, fetid, undertaker and others - juicy terms if there ever were ones - are repeated over and over. The story goes on and on and on.
Had William lived on and submitted this through the normal processes, I'd likely be reeling for it. Fans of his (pick me, pick me!) will notice the phrase "he went on" used periodically, perhaps an homage to Twilight. There will also be mention of some odd fellow one of the characters meets while in jail...you will recognized this guy immediately!
The story is basically one of a journey homeward by a veteran, a sailor now released and meandering home to a frustrated sister and dying father. Along the way, he encounters two men who become his companions for a time and each has their own storied past. Descriptions of the country side and the road traveled are gorgeous, and strange little anecdotes seem true slices of life...a passing car of snotty young girls who wouldn't dare to help a handsome young hitchhiker but are glad to laugh at him - just before their car rounds the bend and lethally collides head on with a wagon of Mennonites. Was he truly unlucky that the girls didn't stop to pick him up?
There are themes and anecdotes in The Lost Country that I bumped into while reading The Long Home, Twilight, and Little Sister Death. They are similar stories - a slapstick hog-wrestling scene, for example - that are very close to some in Provinces of Night. If you've never read these other stories, this will not bother you, but I'm of a mind to stick to whatever and everything William Gay published before his death. Well intentioned as they were, his friends could not do this man's writing justice.
July 16, 2018
It’s not William Gay’s fault that I can’t recommend this. It’s purely the fault of J. M. White (whoever the hell he is) and the members of Gay’s estate who allowed him to cobble this mess together from miscellaneous drafts and rough outlines. Money grubbing is a sad business.
June 9, 2019
I love this book. I hate this book. It is all thinks William Gay. My reading time is so slight now, and this one took me half a year. Glad I chewed slowly.
A few points.
1) If you've never read William Gay......don't start here, it will be hard to appreciate- start with I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories (if you do short stories) or either Provinces of Nightor Twilight if you only do novels.
2) The whole "Gay imitates Cormac McCarthy" thing lives on- this one patterned after Suttree in many ways. Light on "normal" plot, heavy on hidden plot; clearly somewhat autobiographical. Makes me appreciate both writers more to see their worlds, their realities, through their eyes.
3) His words choices, syntax, and imagery blow me away- he cuts to the bone........this time with no real edits at all (posthumously published from literally a patchwork of notebook scribblings and one thirty-year-old, yellowing typescript that was found in an attic behind some sheetrock............somehow Gay's last tribute to his lifestyle on display for we the fans of this most unusual of usuals).
4) Knowing his life's end in advance, and reading his musings about life, end of life, futility of life; his takes on the unavoidableness of life make me respect him even more. Made me sad for him. Made me reflective. Moths to a flame quality to all this. The afterword fills in some blanks, but I kinda knew them before I knew them........again, don't start with this title- get your feet wet elsewhere first.
5) Back to point 2........who knows what connection there was between these two (we do know they talked fairly deeply and admired one another). More likely I think a host of similar influences that somehow played out in similar patterns. Parallel universe in author talk more than copycats. I can't decide whose versioning to appreciate more. Gay's is somehow more introspective- McCarty's is more outer-worldly. Both get you to the same places though, and those places are very rare- plot or none.
A few points.
1) If you've never read William Gay......don't start here, it will be hard to appreciate- start with I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories (if you do short stories) or either Provinces of Nightor Twilight if you only do novels.
2) The whole "Gay imitates Cormac McCarthy" thing lives on- this one patterned after Suttree in many ways. Light on "normal" plot, heavy on hidden plot; clearly somewhat autobiographical. Makes me appreciate both writers more to see their worlds, their realities, through their eyes.
3) His words choices, syntax, and imagery blow me away- he cuts to the bone........this time with no real edits at all (posthumously published from literally a patchwork of notebook scribblings and one thirty-year-old, yellowing typescript that was found in an attic behind some sheetrock............somehow Gay's last tribute to his lifestyle on display for we the fans of this most unusual of usuals).
4) Knowing his life's end in advance, and reading his musings about life, end of life, futility of life; his takes on the unavoidableness of life make me respect him even more. Made me sad for him. Made me reflective. Moths to a flame quality to all this. The afterword fills in some blanks, but I kinda knew them before I knew them........again, don't start with this title- get your feet wet elsewhere first.
5) Back to point 2........who knows what connection there was between these two (we do know they talked fairly deeply and admired one another). More likely I think a host of similar influences that somehow played out in similar patterns. Parallel universe in author talk more than copycats. I can't decide whose versioning to appreciate more. Gay's is somehow more introspective- McCarty's is more outer-worldly. Both get you to the same places though, and those places are very rare- plot or none.
December 23, 2019
Yes, this author is as talented as Cormac McCarthy with his prose, which evokes deep emotion like a musical artist can stoke latent longing. In fact, this brings to memory McCarthy’s Suttree and felt autobiographical – the protagonist is inscrutable, perhaps the author’s most naked yet still there is a mysterious core he protects. The plot in this story is of a long, slogging journey where Billy Edgewater (just out of the navy) seems to ultimately not go very far, mired in the “lost” country of rural, wooded and small town Tennessee. I’ve spent a bit of time in this beautiful and austere and perpetually uneven land. It is set in the 50s, yet bootlegging is still the main action – that being unlicensed liquor for which there is a brisk trade in most of the dry counties in the bible belt. These characters are as original, rich, hilarious and frightening as you will encounter – they ring true as a bell and obviously are built from the author’s first-hand knowledge (more about him later). The way people speak, the turns of phrase, the odd geometry of backward turns of phrase is clearly authentic. The author truly knows these people and the way they talk. Gay’s prose is as good as Faulkner and O’Conner, and the characters fascinating. The dialogue is superb, not marked with quotations (like McCarthy) and interspersed with italicized dream sequences and memories. The story revolves around Edgewater’s days running with two particularly mischievous troublemakers, the one-armed grifter Roosterfish and the young Bradshaw. Both are scheming and land Edgewater in jail and perpetually hiding from the law. But they are hard to find, and their troubles are mostly outside of the law in opposition to a good old boy (Harkness) who owns most everything in sight in his roguish backward ways. Edgewater is stuck, however, as he is largely uneducated without family and direction. He spends a great deal of time with solitary wandering, falling in and out of trouble.
The story of this story is of the author himself, who did not get published till late in life after most of his work was done, all in his spare time. He was a reader and writer in secret, by day a laborer. This was published posthumously, by accumulation of hundreds of notebooks squirreled away in moth-eaten attics. The late discovery of a hidden typed manuscript made this book possible – apparently it was written in the 1970s and for a period of decades, and his ex-wife thought it was his magnum opus. It took two years to resolve the rights to publish after his producer passed away (with massive debt). Gay was secretive, apparently, and there is a great deal we just do not know about this man who privately wrote and dreamed of creating novels worthy of what he would know to be great literature. Apparently, there is more to come, but I suspect they will be of diminishing value as his writings were scattered and incomplete at the time of his untimely death. I imagine he smoked (who didn’t of that ilk and in that time) and his body couldn’t keep up with his brain. One thinks of Larry Brown here, but without the friends and town of Oxford to keep him on task and collected. I found myself marking this book frequently, the prose is just so breathtakingly beautiful, and the people so perfectly interesting. Here are a few. If I could write, I would probably be like this author, quietly pouring it out in solitude, caring only that it brings pleasure to some stranger or kindred spirit after I am gone – William did this for me, and I can’t but be grateful for his commitment to excellence and capturing a time and place to perfection.
p. 19: “He could hear her fumbling out the keys. The engine cranked and they were in motion. She squealed the tires savagely, spun smoking into the street, not looking at him. They rode for a time in silence. He lowered his hand, watched her clean profile against the shifting pattern of traffic, pedestrians moiling like ants. He studied her intently, as if he had never seen her before, some unwary stranger who had lowered her guard and permitted him trespass to her very soul. He saw for the first time the faint cobwebbing of lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the grainy skin magnified by the merciless sun. He looked past her eyes into her and found there imperfections as well. Cold vapors swirling off the river Styx. We grow old, we grow old.”
p. 47: “The nights were never long enough, the night would not replace what the day had stolen. IN all their beds in all their shotgun shacks they lay burled against the quilts in agonized crucifixion, their troubled dreams biased by the enormous tug of gravity from the invisible and lost country they had come from.”
p. 124: “He could smell him. Cheap perfume, Sen Sen, whiskey, dissolution: all the sweet smells of deliberatre ruin, the carrion smell then of slow and self-inflicted death… He looked down into the glossy little eyes as depthless as a stuffed animal’s or the result of some inexpert taxidermist’s art and saw there for one moment pain, a quick flash of outraged dignity; then perhaps they read on Edgewater’s face not fear, but pity, for they went instantly malevolent, a loathsome doll’s eye.”
p. 183: “There was a man and a woman ascending the steps to the Knob and a pickup with an enormous set of bullhorns mounted on the hood sitting in the parking lot. Edgewater followed the pair in. The man was heavyset and unshaven and he wore shapeless dirty overalls. His face was florid as if he dwelt perpetually in some state of banked rage. His eyes were shrewd and small and not unlike holes chiseled into some chaotic darkness that seethed behind the mask he wore for the world to see. He moved with an inherent arrogance as if whatever was in his way would move before he reached it. The woman clutched his arm as if he were holding her afloat in perilous waters. She was younger than he was and heavily made up, eyebrows shaved off and then penciled ack on in an expression of arch surprise, as if the world was constantly coming up with new toys to amuse her. She stood unsteadily, swaying slightly as if drunk or deranged with the heat.”
p. 185: “Edgewater studied him. He could see nothing about Harkness that would cause women to cast aside home and hearth and follow him. Yet there seemed something elemental about him, as if all the layers of convention had been peeled away leaving nothing save the need for procreation and violence.” Wow.
p. 196: “Her blond hair was tousled, she had an old white bathrobe wrapped about her. Her thought her face a trifle too round, but the skin was smooth as fired pottery, a pale glaze unpored or blemished and the blue eyes looked serene, untouched. Innocent. Deep wells blue with distance, remote, fabled repositories for such innocence as remained in the world.”
pp. 229-230: “Crippled Elmer cadged beer with a sort of wistful desperation while his mother searched faces foreign enough to these shores as to be unaware or desperate enough to be unmindful of her generosity with gonorrhea spores and body lice. Her wrinkled face powdered and rouged grotesquely as if her cosmetologist was a failed undertaker so inept as to be drummed from the craft, her hair an electric orange red so absolutely divorced from anything that ever grew on a human head that it appeared something purloined in haste by mistake from the trunk of a clown. She wore brash and groundless confidence like some bright garment of youth that did not fit anymore. She forced on Edgewater a drink of Bobwhite from a halfpint she wore on a string about her neck like some gross bauble. Hauled up from whatever grubby depths of her garments and warmed to body temperature by her collapsed and withered dugs. The bottle itself lipsticked and scented alike with dime-store perfume and the acrid musk of her body; the bottle tilted to her upraised face and upon his ears like some backdrop or soundtrack to whatever drama he played out came through the graffiti-ridden walls of the men’s room the clock of the pool balls. The clanging of the pinball machine, the drunken voices crossing boast with complaint, farther yet and lost a wailing ambulance was shuttled down the endless walls of the night.”
p. 241: “Preachers hinted apocalypse in Sunday sermons to rows of limp parishioners among whose ranks fans fluttered listlessly as leaves in the vagaries of the wind. Saturday corner gospelmongers were more direct. Demented and hydrophobic they ranted of man’s dark side. I told you and you wouldn’t listen, they said with satisfaction. Maybe you’ll listen now. The wrath of God had kicked aside a rotten log, bared the sun’s white agony onto a motley of writhing grubs, sexton beetles scuttling for shelter. The earth wearying of its tenants, shuffling them off into the eye of the sun. Choking with vitriol these men of God looked savagely about for such souls as Saturday night might bring within the range of their voices and saw little worth sparing. Mad faces turned toward the hot sky, they demanded God smite all these whoremongers and adulterers, honkytonk brawlers, whiskey drinking fornicators. That not even the young be spared for evil already ran through them like a fault line.”
p. 306: “The world is full of fools looking for places ain’t there no more. He arose and took up the grain hook. I’ll see you, he said…. He came back out and sat in the chair by the window wishing for daylight but this night seemed timeless. In these clockless hours before day he knew he’d overstayed his welcome but he didn’t know what to do about it. He knew he was leaving but there did not seem to be anywhere he wanted to go or any face left in all the world he cared to look on.”
p. 309: Edgewater in a reunion with the old Roosterfish: “I had some after you left, too. Got kind of squirrelly there after they killed my rooster. They purely kicked the hell out of me, too. That old pisol hadn’t of blowed up I believe they’da killed me. They wanted you as bad or worse than they did me. They hated your ass, son. They could understand me; they couldn’t figure you out for shit”. Surely this is Gay writing about himself.
The story of this story is of the author himself, who did not get published till late in life after most of his work was done, all in his spare time. He was a reader and writer in secret, by day a laborer. This was published posthumously, by accumulation of hundreds of notebooks squirreled away in moth-eaten attics. The late discovery of a hidden typed manuscript made this book possible – apparently it was written in the 1970s and for a period of decades, and his ex-wife thought it was his magnum opus. It took two years to resolve the rights to publish after his producer passed away (with massive debt). Gay was secretive, apparently, and there is a great deal we just do not know about this man who privately wrote and dreamed of creating novels worthy of what he would know to be great literature. Apparently, there is more to come, but I suspect they will be of diminishing value as his writings were scattered and incomplete at the time of his untimely death. I imagine he smoked (who didn’t of that ilk and in that time) and his body couldn’t keep up with his brain. One thinks of Larry Brown here, but without the friends and town of Oxford to keep him on task and collected. I found myself marking this book frequently, the prose is just so breathtakingly beautiful, and the people so perfectly interesting. Here are a few. If I could write, I would probably be like this author, quietly pouring it out in solitude, caring only that it brings pleasure to some stranger or kindred spirit after I am gone – William did this for me, and I can’t but be grateful for his commitment to excellence and capturing a time and place to perfection.
p. 19: “He could hear her fumbling out the keys. The engine cranked and they were in motion. She squealed the tires savagely, spun smoking into the street, not looking at him. They rode for a time in silence. He lowered his hand, watched her clean profile against the shifting pattern of traffic, pedestrians moiling like ants. He studied her intently, as if he had never seen her before, some unwary stranger who had lowered her guard and permitted him trespass to her very soul. He saw for the first time the faint cobwebbing of lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the grainy skin magnified by the merciless sun. He looked past her eyes into her and found there imperfections as well. Cold vapors swirling off the river Styx. We grow old, we grow old.”
p. 47: “The nights were never long enough, the night would not replace what the day had stolen. IN all their beds in all their shotgun shacks they lay burled against the quilts in agonized crucifixion, their troubled dreams biased by the enormous tug of gravity from the invisible and lost country they had come from.”
p. 124: “He could smell him. Cheap perfume, Sen Sen, whiskey, dissolution: all the sweet smells of deliberatre ruin, the carrion smell then of slow and self-inflicted death… He looked down into the glossy little eyes as depthless as a stuffed animal’s or the result of some inexpert taxidermist’s art and saw there for one moment pain, a quick flash of outraged dignity; then perhaps they read on Edgewater’s face not fear, but pity, for they went instantly malevolent, a loathsome doll’s eye.”
p. 183: “There was a man and a woman ascending the steps to the Knob and a pickup with an enormous set of bullhorns mounted on the hood sitting in the parking lot. Edgewater followed the pair in. The man was heavyset and unshaven and he wore shapeless dirty overalls. His face was florid as if he dwelt perpetually in some state of banked rage. His eyes were shrewd and small and not unlike holes chiseled into some chaotic darkness that seethed behind the mask he wore for the world to see. He moved with an inherent arrogance as if whatever was in his way would move before he reached it. The woman clutched his arm as if he were holding her afloat in perilous waters. She was younger than he was and heavily made up, eyebrows shaved off and then penciled ack on in an expression of arch surprise, as if the world was constantly coming up with new toys to amuse her. She stood unsteadily, swaying slightly as if drunk or deranged with the heat.”
p. 185: “Edgewater studied him. He could see nothing about Harkness that would cause women to cast aside home and hearth and follow him. Yet there seemed something elemental about him, as if all the layers of convention had been peeled away leaving nothing save the need for procreation and violence.” Wow.
p. 196: “Her blond hair was tousled, she had an old white bathrobe wrapped about her. Her thought her face a trifle too round, but the skin was smooth as fired pottery, a pale glaze unpored or blemished and the blue eyes looked serene, untouched. Innocent. Deep wells blue with distance, remote, fabled repositories for such innocence as remained in the world.”
pp. 229-230: “Crippled Elmer cadged beer with a sort of wistful desperation while his mother searched faces foreign enough to these shores as to be unaware or desperate enough to be unmindful of her generosity with gonorrhea spores and body lice. Her wrinkled face powdered and rouged grotesquely as if her cosmetologist was a failed undertaker so inept as to be drummed from the craft, her hair an electric orange red so absolutely divorced from anything that ever grew on a human head that it appeared something purloined in haste by mistake from the trunk of a clown. She wore brash and groundless confidence like some bright garment of youth that did not fit anymore. She forced on Edgewater a drink of Bobwhite from a halfpint she wore on a string about her neck like some gross bauble. Hauled up from whatever grubby depths of her garments and warmed to body temperature by her collapsed and withered dugs. The bottle itself lipsticked and scented alike with dime-store perfume and the acrid musk of her body; the bottle tilted to her upraised face and upon his ears like some backdrop or soundtrack to whatever drama he played out came through the graffiti-ridden walls of the men’s room the clock of the pool balls. The clanging of the pinball machine, the drunken voices crossing boast with complaint, farther yet and lost a wailing ambulance was shuttled down the endless walls of the night.”
p. 241: “Preachers hinted apocalypse in Sunday sermons to rows of limp parishioners among whose ranks fans fluttered listlessly as leaves in the vagaries of the wind. Saturday corner gospelmongers were more direct. Demented and hydrophobic they ranted of man’s dark side. I told you and you wouldn’t listen, they said with satisfaction. Maybe you’ll listen now. The wrath of God had kicked aside a rotten log, bared the sun’s white agony onto a motley of writhing grubs, sexton beetles scuttling for shelter. The earth wearying of its tenants, shuffling them off into the eye of the sun. Choking with vitriol these men of God looked savagely about for such souls as Saturday night might bring within the range of their voices and saw little worth sparing. Mad faces turned toward the hot sky, they demanded God smite all these whoremongers and adulterers, honkytonk brawlers, whiskey drinking fornicators. That not even the young be spared for evil already ran through them like a fault line.”
p. 306: “The world is full of fools looking for places ain’t there no more. He arose and took up the grain hook. I’ll see you, he said…. He came back out and sat in the chair by the window wishing for daylight but this night seemed timeless. In these clockless hours before day he knew he’d overstayed his welcome but he didn’t know what to do about it. He knew he was leaving but there did not seem to be anywhere he wanted to go or any face left in all the world he cared to look on.”
p. 309: Edgewater in a reunion with the old Roosterfish: “I had some after you left, too. Got kind of squirrelly there after they killed my rooster. They purely kicked the hell out of me, too. That old pisol hadn’t of blowed up I believe they’da killed me. They wanted you as bad or worse than they did me. They hated your ass, son. They could understand me; they couldn’t figure you out for shit”. Surely this is Gay writing about himself.
September 3, 2018
Hardscrabble lives make hard-going reading.
William Gay made his living as a carpenter and drywall-hanger, and published his first novel in 1998 when he was fifty-seven. He died in 2012 and since then three new titles of his have appeared posthumously. This is one of them.
I’m afraid I didn’t get on with it at all but that is more to do with me as a reader rather than Gay as a writer. I’m not keen on this type of aimless ‘on the road’ novel where the main protagonist is on a journey (in this case, home to visit his dying father in Tennessee) and meets up with a series of wretched characters who lead hardscrabble lives.
The descriptive writing is impressive though a little too ornate for my taste - and rather too much of it. I also wasn’t keen on the italic-set dream sequences and absence of chapters. But I did very much like the tenderly-penned foreword by Sonny Brewer who was a great friend of the author.
If you enjoy reading books set in the backwoods of America's Deep South with all that that implies, then this may be your cup of home-distilled whiskey. It just wasn’t mine.
William Gay made his living as a carpenter and drywall-hanger, and published his first novel in 1998 when he was fifty-seven. He died in 2012 and since then three new titles of his have appeared posthumously. This is one of them.
I’m afraid I didn’t get on with it at all but that is more to do with me as a reader rather than Gay as a writer. I’m not keen on this type of aimless ‘on the road’ novel where the main protagonist is on a journey (in this case, home to visit his dying father in Tennessee) and meets up with a series of wretched characters who lead hardscrabble lives.
The descriptive writing is impressive though a little too ornate for my taste - and rather too much of it. I also wasn’t keen on the italic-set dream sequences and absence of chapters. But I did very much like the tenderly-penned foreword by Sonny Brewer who was a great friend of the author.
If you enjoy reading books set in the backwoods of America's Deep South with all that that implies, then this may be your cup of home-distilled whiskey. It just wasn’t mine.
January 28, 2020
I read this about a year ago, but I find myself thinking about it a lot. I don't usually reread books, but I think I might have to take the plunge with this one. It's nearly perfect.
July 25, 2021
One bad thing after another happens on an endless road trip. Seriously over-written. Published posthumously, so this may not be representative of the author’s work. Abandoned.
July 26, 2018
I usually shy away from works published posthumously, especially when the work wasn't complete before the author died. But, unlike Little Sister Death, which was the first work published by William Gay after his death in 2012, which struggled to define itself and ultimately left me wishing they had left the manuscript alone, The Lost Country feels more complete than anything else Gay ever wrote. That's why it didn't surprise me to learn that the book had actually been written back in the 70's, and only rediscovered by the hard work of Gay's good friend and editor, J.M. White.
I'll be the first to admit that my experience with Gay's works has been somewhat bitter sweet. I've found a lot of his work, though beautifully written and dense with memorable phrases and characters, overall derivative in story and plot, especially compared with the works of his fellow Tennessean, Cormac McCarthy. Along with his short stories, which are wholly original and, I would argue are his best works, The Lost Country is the exception to this rule. Edgewater and Roosterfish feel more real than any of his previous characters, and the scope of the story, though undulating and scattered at times, fits perfectly with its nomadic protagonists.
Books like this make me wonder what could have been if Gay had lived longer or began publishing sooner (rather than at 59). But I'm heartened by the fact that there are other fans of his that are working to bring his troves of unpublished material to light. If they're half as good as The Lost Country, they'll find purchase somewhere.
I'll be the first to admit that my experience with Gay's works has been somewhat bitter sweet. I've found a lot of his work, though beautifully written and dense with memorable phrases and characters, overall derivative in story and plot, especially compared with the works of his fellow Tennessean, Cormac McCarthy. Along with his short stories, which are wholly original and, I would argue are his best works, The Lost Country is the exception to this rule. Edgewater and Roosterfish feel more real than any of his previous characters, and the scope of the story, though undulating and scattered at times, fits perfectly with its nomadic protagonists.
Books like this make me wonder what could have been if Gay had lived longer or began publishing sooner (rather than at 59). But I'm heartened by the fact that there are other fans of his that are working to bring his troves of unpublished material to light. If they're half as good as The Lost Country, they'll find purchase somewhere.
July 20, 2018
William Gay's grim menagerie of the Southern Gothic, finished shortly before his death, has finally been pieced together from manuscripts, and it's wonderful. He has channeled the desperation of Carson McCullers, the characterization of Flannery O'Connor, and the language of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner. That may seem like hyperbole, but it's not. He was that good. Fans of European Weird fiction could appreciate this 'purple' writing. The only reason this book doesn't rate higher is perhaps due to the posthumous editing, as it gets unfocused in its episodic nature, and some of its overuse of simile needed to be reined in. The man was a master of creating metaphor, but there needed to be restraint on a few occasions. Finally, I had felt in previous novels that Gay was trying too hard to imitate McCarthy and Faulkner, but this novel shows that Gay, in the twilight of his career, could distinctly equal them.
January 15, 2022
A very accomplished if bleak book. The three main protagonists are extremely well drawn and believable.
The twisting story was a weird hybrid of nothingness and hidden significance rolled into one.
This American descent into destruction with little redemption can be morose, but the prose and craft on show elevates it above.
The twisting story was a weird hybrid of nothingness and hidden significance rolled into one.
This American descent into destruction with little redemption can be morose, but the prose and craft on show elevates it above.
Read
September 17, 2018Didn’t have time to read the whole book, but got a strong feel of the countryside, the people, the times. Yes, it’s dark. Gay obviously loved the language and took a great pride in sparsity and precision of each sentence. I’ll be back to read more of William Gay.
July 2, 2022
William Gay is my kinda writer. This is Southern Grit Lit - bare knuckled, honest-to-god, white trash tales of poverty, desperation, and the rural code. William Gay writes about the beat down with a depth of understanding only experience could fathom.
January 31, 2020
Can't believe I slogged through this book and didn't use my 50 page rule. Ugh...others reviewed it as "Southern Gothic". How about "White Trash Drinking Heavily". The whole book is nothing but humans at their worst causing their own problems.
February 19, 2021
If you’re from rural Tennessee, you’ve met these folks. Not sure how much mileage outsiders will get out of it.
June 4, 2020
Southern Gothic literature equals beautifully poetic prose portraying mankind at its worst.
William Gay is recognised as a master of the genre, a born storyteller that mesmerise the reader with superb lyric sentences and acute insights into the human soul. I had high expectations for this book but sadly I enjoyed it less that his other works.
In the books that I read previously, Gay’s poetry was delivered in small doses, it was an accent rather than a symphony I and I enjoyed the author’s style. Unfortunately in this one, I felt that the richly descriptive lines were excessive, they came in large waves, one after the other, not leaving the reader time to absorb them, and so interrupted the rhythm and flow of the story. Essentially, for me this novel was too flowery and elaborated.
Being a posthumous novel, my feelings could be the results of the editor not daring to remove any of the master’s lines, resulting in a longer than necessary book with parts that seemed assembled piecemeal. The afterward by J.M. White which explains how the manuscript was reconstructed after a large number of handwritten notebooks were found in Gay’s old attic house, seems to confirm this hypothesis.
The tone of the novel is extremely bleak also. Edgewater, Bradshaw and Roosterfish are the typical damaged anti-heroes, they wander the countryside, meeting a bunch of hopeless, mean, wretched characters, whose actions reveal few redeeming acts (or none altogether). Despite the beauty of the language, it all makes for a sad and depressing read.
3.5 stars rounded down
William Gay is recognised as a master of the genre, a born storyteller that mesmerise the reader with superb lyric sentences and acute insights into the human soul. I had high expectations for this book but sadly I enjoyed it less that his other works.
In the books that I read previously, Gay’s poetry was delivered in small doses, it was an accent rather than a symphony I and I enjoyed the author’s style. Unfortunately in this one, I felt that the richly descriptive lines were excessive, they came in large waves, one after the other, not leaving the reader time to absorb them, and so interrupted the rhythm and flow of the story. Essentially, for me this novel was too flowery and elaborated.
Being a posthumous novel, my feelings could be the results of the editor not daring to remove any of the master’s lines, resulting in a longer than necessary book with parts that seemed assembled piecemeal. The afterward by J.M. White which explains how the manuscript was reconstructed after a large number of handwritten notebooks were found in Gay’s old attic house, seems to confirm this hypothesis.
The tone of the novel is extremely bleak also. Edgewater, Bradshaw and Roosterfish are the typical damaged anti-heroes, they wander the countryside, meeting a bunch of hopeless, mean, wretched characters, whose actions reveal few redeeming acts (or none altogether). Despite the beauty of the language, it all makes for a sad and depressing read.
3.5 stars rounded down
December 10, 2020
If Gay hadn't died before finishing this book, I feel that it might have been one of the masterpieces of grits lit, up there perhaps with McCarthy and Frazier's finest. There are so many absolutely beautifully written and descriptive passages that just take the reader away, even if it is a bit dense at times. I feel it is much better that even TWILIGHT. It is not a feel-good story, basically following the odyssey of a young man discharged from the Navy as he slowly travels toward his home in Tennessee, only to be frequently sidetracked into the orbits of more powerful personalities. Very few of the characters here, major or minor, are very good individuals, but they are often colorful. There is a lot of dark doings and brutality, much meted out toward women, and even though it is set in the 1950s, one gets the feeling it reflects a lifestyle even older and hardscrabble. I would never have wanted to live in the area so described, though many of the people are familiar to me nonetheless, both through literature and real life. If you like Appalachian/Southern writers---such as Pollock, Harrison, Brown, Woodrell and others---I am sure you will like this one, even despite its flaws.
May 20, 2020
4.5. Started out thinking this was a really good Cormac McCarthy knockoff, Cormac Lite, but then this found its way and became vivid and beautiful in its own way.... more "southern noir" than "southern gothic." Enchanting but it definitely could have used some editing, with some of the repeat fancy words that stuck out within pages of one another. Curious how reading a fully completed Gay book will feel. Blown away that Gay was a sharecropper's son and unpublished until his 50s.
February 15, 2022
What a treat to ride this slow burn. William Gay was the poetic painter of prose, the sommelier of simile, the indubitable master of inimical moments. With those who deem this his masterpiece, I concur.
It was interesting to see some crosstalk with his other books, even the also-posthumously-published Little Sister Death.
It was interesting to see some crosstalk with his other books, even the also-posthumously-published Little Sister Death.
May 29, 2018
Meandering, long-winded, stereotypical female characters, thin on plot... and still pretty lovely.
There's such a joy in Gay's sometimes over-the-top lyricism, such a richness to his writing, that I don't mind the fact that even after 300+ pages not a whole lot of note takes place. It's just such a blast to read the sentences themselves. That aside, one of my favorite elements of Gay's writing is on full display here - and that's the oftentimes dark hilarity of being broke-ass, deathly poor. He writes about poor people with such compassion and knowledge, but also notes the humor inherent in trying to eke out a life through destitution. Couple that with the absolutely singing dialogue and it's a solid read. I wouldn't expect a lot plot-wise, and the women are pretty much just vehicles for the men's desires, but you'll be rereading plenty of sentences; the guy's verbal wizardry is in full effect here.
There's such a joy in Gay's sometimes over-the-top lyricism, such a richness to his writing, that I don't mind the fact that even after 300+ pages not a whole lot of note takes place. It's just such a blast to read the sentences themselves. That aside, one of my favorite elements of Gay's writing is on full display here - and that's the oftentimes dark hilarity of being broke-ass, deathly poor. He writes about poor people with such compassion and knowledge, but also notes the humor inherent in trying to eke out a life through destitution. Couple that with the absolutely singing dialogue and it's a solid read. I wouldn't expect a lot plot-wise, and the women are pretty much just vehicles for the men's desires, but you'll be rereading plenty of sentences; the guy's verbal wizardry is in full effect here.
August 5, 2018
William Gay died in 2012 at the age of 70, presumably of a heart attack, but two of his books have been published posthumously. The most recent has been The Lost Country, a novel that was first announced to be released 10 years ago. One may wonder why the wait has been so long, when Gay is usually namechecked as an influence on American Southern Gothic writers by people such as Caleb Johnson, whose debut novel Treeborne reads almost as a homage to Gay. Well, the answer may be that the book needed a bit of editing in lieu of his death. At times, The Lost Country reads like an unpublished first draft of the very first book he tried to write. I don’t know in what timeframe of Gay’s writing career, which basically covered the years in the double-aughts, this book was written. However, since Gay began writing at the age of 15, but didn’t get published until his 50s, there’s perhaps a wide range of time in which The Lost Country may have gestated. Whether or not this is a trunk book or something written towards the end of his life but was left unfinished is something that a Google search doesn’t turn up.
Set in the American South of the mid-1950s, the book is told from the viewpoint of two main characters. The first, Billy Edgewater, has been discharged from the Navy, and has been basically been estranged from anyone who knows him. The second main character is a one-armed con man named Roosterfish, who travels around Tennessee looking for people to grift. Edgewater and Roosterfish eventually met up for a period, and trouble follows the pair. There are stretches in jails, there are stretches where the characters are being beaten up, there are stretches where nothing of import happens. The characters are basically hillbilly sad sacks who eschew full-time employment, and hit up bars simply to drink all day — and that’s when they’re not busy bootlegging whiskey in dry areas of the South.
Read the rest here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...
Set in the American South of the mid-1950s, the book is told from the viewpoint of two main characters. The first, Billy Edgewater, has been discharged from the Navy, and has been basically been estranged from anyone who knows him. The second main character is a one-armed con man named Roosterfish, who travels around Tennessee looking for people to grift. Edgewater and Roosterfish eventually met up for a period, and trouble follows the pair. There are stretches in jails, there are stretches where the characters are being beaten up, there are stretches where nothing of import happens. The characters are basically hillbilly sad sacks who eschew full-time employment, and hit up bars simply to drink all day — and that’s when they’re not busy bootlegging whiskey in dry areas of the South.
Read the rest here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...
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