A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

(Paperback)

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Description

From the author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart and set in the boom years of the West Virginia coalmining industry, this is an epic story of personal ambition, exile and return, and a grand heist.
Keystone, West Virginia, 1910

In the hot August rain the townspeople gather to witness the first public hanging in over a decade. At the gallows are none other than poker player, Abe Baach, and his lover, the madam of the towns brothel, one Goldie Toothman.

Abe split town seven years prior and has been playing cards up and down the coast ever since. But when he returns to Keystone to reunite with Goldie and to set the past right, he finds a brother dead and his father's saloon in shambles and suspects the same men might be responsible for both. Only then, in facing his family's past, does the real swindle begin.

Reviews

Praise for A Hanging at Cinder Bottom:

It's not enough to say Glenn Taylor is a brilliant writer. He's that rarity nowadays, a great storyteller irresistible. You'll never have a better time at a hanging Stewart O'Nan, author of A Prayer for the Dying

Praise for The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart:

[A] galloping, defiant epica virtuoso performancevigorous and sincere, located squarely in the tradition of Twain, Faulkner and McCullers GUARDIAN

Taylor has created a marvellous, jump-off-the-page charactera defiantly incredible creationThe writing is limber, and the real life it bundles up into its freakish, charismatic character make this a genuine success that admirers of John Irving and others too will surely enjoy THE INDEPENDENT

[A] mesmerisingly fluid narrativeSmart, brash, but totally convincing, this has the makings of a page-turning literary sensation WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY

A confident, funny and often surprising read METRO

Wildly inventive THE TIMES

This is indeed a book that succeeds in its early pages to completely capture the reader LE MONDE

It is an exceptional novel with a rare picaresque powerTaylor is a master LE FIGARO

Taylor's prose is so fluid and seemingly effortless that The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart bridges the usually irreconcilable gap between popular fiction and literary fiction. It's that rare creature-a literary page-turner. . .a stunning, fully realized, unique and ambitious book that proves there's still passion, fire and brilliance in the American novel HOUSTON CHRONICLE

An energetic romp DAZED AND CONFUSED

Think of this novel as an American version of One Hundred Years of Solitude BOB HOOVER, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

Author Bio

Glenn Taylor was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. His first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award. The Marrowbone Marble Company is his second novel. Taylor lives in Morgantown, West Virginia with his wife and three sons. He teaches in the English Department at West Virginia University.