Little Sister Death
Praise for William Gay
The Long Home
“A writer of remarkable talent and promise…eminently worth talking about.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Gay has created a novel of great emotional power.” —Denver Post
“It’ll leave you breathless…” —Rocky Mountain News
Provinces of Night
“Earthily idiosyncratic, spookily Gothic…an author with a powerful vision.” —The New York Times
“An extremely seductive read.” —Washington Post Book World
“Southern writing at its very finest, soaked through with the words and images of rural Tennessee, packed full of that which really matters, the problems of the human heart.” —Booklist
“A writer of striking talent.” —Chicago Tribune
“Almost a personal revival of handwork in fiction—superb—must be listened to and felt.” —Barry Hannah, award-winning author of Geronimo Rex and Airships
“This is a novel from the old school. The characters are truly characters. The prose is Gothic. And the charm is big.” —The San Diego Union Tribune
“Writers like Flannery O’Connor or William Faulkner would welcome Gay as their peer for getting characters so entangled in the roots of a family tree.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“[A novel] about the preciousness of hope, the fragility of dreams, interwoven with a good-sized dollop of Biblical justice and the belief that a Southern family can be cursed.” —The Miami Herald
“Plumbs the larger things in life… The epic and the personal unite seamlessly.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“An old-fashioned barrel-aged shot of Tennessee storytelling. Gay’s tale of ancient wrongs and men with guns is high-proof stuff” —Elwood Reid, author of Midnight Sun and What Salmon Know
“A finely wrought, moving story with a plot as old as Homer. Sometimes the old ones are the best ones.” —The Atlanta Journal Constitution
“William Gay is the big new name to include in the storied annals of Southern lit.” —Esquire
“A plot so gripping that the reader wants to fly through the pages to reach the conclusion.but the beauty and richness of Gay’s language exerts a contrary pull, making the reader want to linger over every word.” —Rocky Mountain News
“Gay is a terrific writer.” —The Plain Dealer
I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down
“William Gay is richly gifted: a seemingly effortless storyteller…a writer of prose that’s fiercely wrought, pungent in detail yet poetic in the most welcome sense.” —The New York Times Book Review
“One perfect tale follows another, leaving you in little doubt that Gay is a genuine poet of the ornery, the estranged, the disenfranchised, crafting stories built to last.” —Seattle Times
“A writer of striking talent.” —Chicago Tribune
“Gay confirms his place in the Southern fiction pantheon.” —Publishers Weekly
“Every story is a masterpiece…in the Southern tradition of Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner.” —USA Today
“As charming as it is wise. Hellfire—in all the right ways.” —Kirkus Reviews
“[Gay] brings to these stories the same astounding talent that earned his two novels…a devoted following.” —Booklist
“Supple and beautifully told tales…saturated with an intense sense of place, their vividness and authenticity are impossible to fake.” —The San Diego Union Tribune
“Gay writes about old folks marvelously… [His] words ring like crystal…” —Washington Post Book World
“As always, Gay’s description and dialogue are amazing…. Writing like this keeps you reading.” —Orlando Sentinel
“After two stunning novels that combined the esoteric language of Cormac McCarthy with the subtle humor of Larry Brown, Gay delivers concise craft work in his first short story collection…Much in the same way Erskine Caldwell created slice-of-life Southern stories that were full of humor, conflict, and even forbidden sensuality many years ago, so now does William Gay.” —The Oregonian
“[Gay’s] strong words never fail to paint a precise picture.… Fans of his novels will find lots of meaty reading here.” —Chattanooga Times
“Gay’s characters come right up and bite you…. [His] well-chosen words propel the reader straight through his 13 stories.” —Denver Post
“Even Faulkner would have been proud to call these words his own.” —The Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Gay captivates with bristling tales of old men, bootleggers, and wife-beaters in rural Tennessee…. his prose is as natural and pure as it comes.” —Newsweek
“This book will have you laughing, fearful, and utterly filled with suspense—often all within the same well-crafted story.” —SouthernLiving
“A literary country music song…. With deft and lyrical prose [Gay] captures the poignancy of loss, isolation, and double-fisted grief, of disappointment, rage, jealousy, violence, and heartbreak.” —GoMemphis.com
Twilight
“Think No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Deliverance by James Dickey….then double the impact.” —Stephen King
“There is much to admire here: breathtaking, evocative writing and a dark, sardonic humor.” —USA Today
“William Gay brings the daring of Flannery O’Connor and William Gaddis to his lush and violent surrealist yarns.” —The Irish Times
“This is Southern Gothic of the very darkest hue, dripping with atmosphere, sparkling with loquacity, and with occasional gleams of horrible humor. To be read in the broadest daylight.” —The Times
Little Sister Death
Also by William Gay
The Long Home
Provinces of Night
I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down
Wittgenstein’s Lolita/The Iceman
Twilight
Time Done Been Won’t Be No More
Little Sister Death
William Gay
5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
www.dzancbooks.org
LITTLE SISTER DEATH. Copyright © 2015, text by William Gay. All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books, 5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103.
“A Fire Burning: An Introduction by Tom Franklin” originally appeared, in slightly different form, in Oxford American under the title “William Gay: 1941-2012.”
“Queen of the Haunted Dell” originally appeared, in slightly different form, in Oxford American under the same title.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gay, William.
Little sister death / by William Gay.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-1-938103-13-1
1. Authors—Fiction. 2. Fairies—Fiction. 3. Folklore—Tennessee—Fiction. 4. Legends—Tennessee—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.A985L58 2015
813’.54--dc23
2015008018
First US edition: September 2015
ISBN: 978-1-938103-13-1
Book design by Michelle Dotter
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
A Fire Burning: An Introduction by Tom Franklin
Little Sister Death
Queen of the Haunted Dell
A Fire Burning:
An Introduction by Tom Franklin
He cut his own hair. In warm weather he’d bathe in the creek behind his house. He hunted ginseng in the woods when the season was right. He tended a vegetable garden that grew tomatoes, squash, okra, carrots, and onions. He smoked Marlboros. He sometimes wrote in a tree house on his property. Women loved him.
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