Provinces of Night

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

The year is 1952, and E.F.Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after twenty years of roaming to find the three sons he abandoned are grown and angry: Warren is a womanising alcoholic, Boyd is obsessed with hunting down his wife's lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mother's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, can see beyond all the hatred and the strife and through the love of Raven Lee, a beauty from another town, he finds the courage to reject his family's curse.

Reviews

'Gay's writing is earth-toned, pungent, deeply rooted in the remote corner of Tennessee... Provinces of Night shows an author with a powerful vision and plenteous veins of material.' Richard Bernstein, New York Times 'There's not a word wasted in this living, breathing narrative populated by strongly-drawn characters... a fresh, original lament for the traces of the old South. Gay's vivid prose and dramatic instinct create lasting images and human moments of genius. This is a far bigger book than many novels twice its size, and it deserves its place in a rich tradition.' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

Author Bio

William Gay lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee. His work has appeared in the Georgia Review, the Oxford Review, and The Best American Mystery Stories 2001. He is the author of the novels The Long Home and Provinces of Night. Reviewing Provinces of Night, the New York Times Book Review wrote that 'Gay writes with the wisdom and patience of a man who has witnessed hard times . . . he looks upon beauty and violence with equal measure and makes an accurate accounting of how much of each the human heart contains'.