A review of the latest William Gay collection by Wayne Catan, of Chapter 16, a community of Tennessee writers, readers, and passerby, from June 27, 2022.
posthumous
Stories from the Attic Now Available from Dzanc Books.
The final book from the William Gay Archive has been released. What began as This Ride Ain’t Over Yet, an early attempt at collecting posthumous short works, Stories from the Attic contains previously unpublished short stories, memoirs, and fragments. The book includes a preface by J.M. White, and concludes with a question and answer with the team of editors that have worked on the publication.
From Dzanc Books:
“From a celebrated master of the Southern Gothic comes a last collection of hard-hitting short fiction, his final posthumous work.
Beloved for his novels Twilight, The Long Home, and The Lost Country and his groundbreaking collection I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, William Gay returns with one final posthumous collection of short stories, adapted from the archive found after his death in February 2012. In addition to previously unpublished short stories, Stories from the Attic includes fragments from two of the unpublished novels that were works in progress at the time of his death.
Marked by his signature skill and bare-knuckled insight, this collection is a must-read for William Gay devotees and fans of Southern short fiction.”
$26.95
Publication Date: July 17, 2022
Hardcover: 348 pages
ISBN: 9781950539451
Roundtable Interview in The Chattahoochee Review
The editors of the William Gay Archive and Dzanc Books are featured in a roundtable interview within the Volume 38.2-3 Fall 2018/Winter 2019 issue of The Chattahoochee Review. Michelle Dotter of Dzanc Books, Lamont Ingalls, Sheila Kennedy, Susan McDonald, Paul Nitsche, and Michael White discuss William Gay’s ongoing legacy and the releasing of his posthumous works.
The Chattahoochee Review is a literary journal published by Perimeter College at Georgia State University.
The Lost Country Available July 10, 2018
Ten years after it was first announced, The Lost Country is to be released on July 10, 2018 from Dzanc Books.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE LOST COUNTRY
“The language and the imagery Gay uses is so vividly haunting that I want to savor it all. Definitely a must-read for fans of Southern Literature.”
—Catherine Bock, Parnassus Books
“Like so many fans of Gay's, I've been waiting to read this seemingly mythical work, The Lost Country, for quite some time....Gay's elegiac prose sings once again as he breathes life into his characters and mines his patch of soil with the skill of the old masters. The Lost Country is the story of Billy Edgewater and his hard journey through a post World War II South filled with the downtrodden—hucksters, racists, drunks, bad or lost men and women, all trying to make it in a harsh rural setting that is unforgiving yet beautiful. It's a helluva good ride and I can't wait to recommend it.”
—Cody Morrison, Square Books
“The Lost Country lands like a shimmering gift from the beyond. For those of us who cherish and honor Gay's tremendous talent, his bold method of seeing the waste and wonder we are, this posthumous novel is a reminder of what we miss: the language pitched toward the sublime, his men and women grappling for redemption in a world that has damned them, his understanding of grace in the presence of human badness. When Gay died too soon, we lost much, but The Lost Country gives a piece of him back to us.”
—William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark
“The novel exposes us to a deliciously dark southern underbelly, one that, when paired with its sparse, lean prose and quiet intensity, becomes incredibly mesmerizing.”
—The Next Best Book Club
For ordering and more information, please visit Dzanc Books.