Although his characters continue to revolt against the received instructions of modern American living - refusing to be dunked in what Saul Bellow has called the "marinade of correctness" - their concerns are less for independence than for the maintenance of sanity itself. Emotional estrangement seems both inevitable and worth fighting against to the middle-aged heroine of the O. Henry prizewinner "Trick or Treat"; to the unmistakably American roofer of "Wayne" (who was introduced in "Typical" ); to the deserted husband, father, and non-vet of "Dump"; and to the fantastic heroes in three stories grouped as "All Along the Watchtower.

    But her father's last wish to have his ashes scattered there, and his young colleague's desire to write an article about him, conspire against Catherine. Hoping to stop her family's secrets from being exposed, she travels to her once-beloved Lowcountry town-and embarks on a poignant trip into the past...a journey that might lead her into a new life of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery.

    Peejoe and his older brother Wiley move on to their Uncle Dove's home in Industry, Ala., where racial conflict brings frightening bloodshed as well as oratory from George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr. Meanwhile, on the road and in California, the newly emancipated Lucille brings every ounce of her desirability and determination to bear on her quest for stardom. Childress tells his story through the masterfully crafted voice of the adult Peejoe reminiscing from his home in present-day San Francisco. He depicts each character with convincing detail and all the vividness of childhood memory; there is magic in his mixture of humor and pathos, boyish candor and time-earned understanding. The narrative has a unique gentleness that tempers even the most extreme horrific or comic events without dismissing or oversimplifying them. Terrible crimes go unpunished, and good people face tragedy--not always nobly--but this remains a tale of laughter and great hope, one not easily forgotten.

    Set in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, THE UNVANQUISHED focuses on the Sartoris family, who, with their code of personal responsibility and courage, stand for the best of the Old South's traditions.

    Set in Appalachia in the years before World War II, Velva Jean Learns to Drive is a poignant story of a spirited young girl growing up in the gold-mining and moonshining South. Before she dies, Velva Jean's mother urges her to "live out there in the great wide world". Velva Jean dreams of becoming a big-time singer in Nashville until she falls in love with Harley Bright, a handsome juvenile delinquent turned revival preacher. As their tumultuous love story unfolds, Velva Jean must choose between keeping her hard-won home and pursuing her dream of singing in the Grand Ole Opry.

    The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots.But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it.For the bones—those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago—are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town.Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.

    Pearson's second novel, "Off for the Sweet Hereafter, " fulfilled the promise of his first, "A Short History of a Small Place," returning once more to the mythic environs of Neely, North Carolina, and to the madcap antics of its odd but endearing inhabitants. If "A Short History" delved deeply and hilariously into the burdens of family legacy in a small Southern town where sanity is a scarce community, "Off for the Sweet Hereafter" is a rollicking adventure, a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde story about two passionate but star-crossed lovers, Raeford Benton Lynch and Jane Elizabeth Firesheets. Together they cut a wide swath of mayhem and murder before their number comes up in a bloody blaze of glory.

    After being released from prison, Glen Davis returns to his hometown only to commit double homicide within forty-eight hours of his return. Sheriff Bobby Blanchard, as upright as Glen is despicable, walks in the path of Glen’s destruction and tries to rebuild the fragile ties of the families and community they share. Dark secrets that have been simmering for two generations explode to the surface, allowing us a chilling glimpse at how evil can fester in a man’s heart and eat up his soul.“This is the novel that will live with you day and night.” — Kaye Gibbons“Cancel the competition for the suspense thriller of the year. Larry Brown has already won it with Father and Son.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch“Larry Brown is one of the great unsung heroes of American fiction... His work is a reminder of a reason to read.” —San Jose Mercury News

    Now attorney Oliver Babcock, Jr., has been given the difficult task of presenting the locals with two options: sell their land to the federal government for the creation of a national park or remain behind at their own financial peril.     While some of the area’s inhabitants seem ready to embrace a new and modern life, others, deeply embedded in their rural ways, are resistant. Silas Wright’s cantankerous unwillingness to sell or to follow the new rules leads to some knotty and often amusing predicaments. Jim Hawkins, hired by the Parks commission, has relocated his reluctant wife, Nell, and their children to Cataloochee, but Nell’s unhappiness forces Jim to make a dire choice between his roots and his family. And a sinister force is at work in the form of the deranged Willie McPeters, who threatens those who have decided to stay put.    Requiem by Fire is a moving, timeless tale of survival and change. With humor and pathos, this magnificent novel transports readers to another time and place—and celebrates Southern storytelling at its finest.

    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 womanising alcoholic; Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover; and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mother's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with respect and sees past all the hatred, realising the way it can poison 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 his family's curse.In a tale redolent with the crumbling loyalties and age-old strife of the post-war American South made familiar to us by Cormac McCarthy, Gay's characters inhabit a world driven by blood ties that strangle as they bind. A coming of age novel, a love story, and a portrait of a family torn apart, Provinces of Night introduced a distinctive new voice in American fiction and a superb cast of characters.

    This will be no ordinary wedding—not when Boudou Fontana, the last of the star-crossed Fontana clan, the conjoined twins Tous-les-Doux, and a host of others are involved.From a writer of rare grace and comic genius comes a “warm, sad, and hilarious ride through the carnival of life” (Dallas Morning News). Rich in character and insight into the vagaries and varieties of love and memory, Deep in the Shade of Paradise is John Dufresne at his funny and thoughtful best.

    The neighborhood children call him the Pee-can Man; their mothers call them inside whenever he appears. When the police chief's son is found stabbed to death near his camp, the man Ora knows as Eddie is arrested and charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, Ora sets out to tell the truth about the Pecan Man. In narrating her story, Ora discovers more truth about herself than she could ever have imagined. This novel has been described as To Kill a Mockingbird meets The Help.

    Mother of Pearl revolves around twenty-eight-year-old Even Grade, a black man who grew up an orphan, and Valuable Korner, the fifteen-year-old white daughter of the town whore and an unknown father. Both are passionately determined to discover the precious things neither experienced as children: human connection, enduring commitment, and, above all, unconditional love. A startlingly accomplished mixture of beauty, mystery, and tragedy, Mother of Pearl marks the debut of an extraordinary literary talent. (Oprah's Book Club)

    She lost her mother some years before, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away. And now her father has left town to work on a top-secret military project at Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. Helen is wise beyond her years, but a ten-year-old cannot be left on her own to fend for herself. Her father arranges a summer guardian, Flora, her late mother's twenty-two-year-old first cousin who cries at the drop of a hat. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact, with all its ghosts and stories. Flora is the good-hearted, modest cousin who wants to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played out against a backdrop of a lost America, will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.

    Olivia Harker Cross owns a strip of mountain in Pope County, Kentucky, a land where whites and blacks eke out a living in separate, tattered kingdoms and where silver-faced wolves howl in the night. But someone is killing the wolves of Big Foley Mountain–and Olivia is beginning to realize how much of her own bitter history she’s never understood: Her mother’s madness, building toward a fiery crescendo. Her daughter’s flight to California, leaving her to raise Will’m, her beloved grandson. And most of all, her town’s fear, for Olivia has real and dangerous enemies. Now this proud, lonely woman will face her mother and daughter, her neighbors and the wolf hunters of Big Foley Mountain. And when she does, she’ll ignite a conflict that will embroil an entire community–and change her own life in the most astonishing of ways.