Michael Farris Smith – författare

A dark Southern tale of desperate souls who've wound up on the road of poor choices, a messianic child with untold powers, and those out hunting her for their own reward, all drawn together by Michael Farris Smith's trademark mournful, spirit-gnawing prose.An old woman, riddled with dementia, walks off into the woods in the middle of the night. A light in the wood draws her to a campfire with two strange, dangerous men, who are there plotting a crime of as-yet-indeterminate purpose. The two men have a job to do. They are hunting something precious but have only been told: you’ll know it when you see it.When they arrive at the place, an abandoned church cellar in the burned-out countryside, they find an answer they never could have predicted.Now, the job feels dubious, one that’ll surely bring them to ruin. Yet if they’re to go against orders, no step can be undone, and nothing can be taken back.In spare prose, Lay Your Armour Down reduces the epic to its most elemental. It charts the course of several broken people, all outrunning danger’s dark fingers, and all brought together for one last chance at redemption.

The small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, but now seems stuck in a black-and-white photograph from days gone by. Unknowing, the town and its people are about to come alive again, awakening to nightmares, as ghostly whispers have begun to fill the night from the kudzu-covered valley that sits on the edge of town.When a vagabond family appears on the outskirts and twin boys and a woman go missing, disappearing beneath the vines, a man with his own twisted past struggles to untangle the secrets in the midst of the town trauma.This is a landscape of fear and ghosts, of regret and violence. It is a landscape transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding terrible secrets deeper still. Blackwood is the evil in the woods, the wickedness that lurks in all of us.

The small town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, but now seems stuck in a black-and-white photograph from days gone by. Unknowing, the town and its people are about to come alive again, awakening to nightmares, as ghostly whispers have begun to fill the night from the kudzu-covered valley that sits on the edge of town.When a vagabond family appears on the outskirts, when twin boys and a woman go missing, disappearing beneath the vines, a man with his own twisted past struggles to untangle the secrets in the midst of the town trauma.This is a landscape of fear and ghosts, of regret and violence. It is a landscape transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding terrible secrets deeper still. Blackwood is the evil in the woods, the wickedness that lurks in all of us.

Critically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith pulls Nick Carraway out of the shadows and into the spotlight in this exhilarating imagination of his life before The Great GatsbyBefore Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's world, he was at the centre of a very different story - one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance - doomed from the very beginning - to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.An epic portrait of a truly singular era and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Charged with enough alcohol, heartbreak, and profound yearning to transfix even the heartiest of golden age scribes, Nick reveals the man behind the narrator who has captivated readers for decades.

Critically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith pulls Nick Carraway out of the shadows and into the spotlight in this exhilarating imagination of his life before The Great Gatsby.Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby''s world, he was at the centre of a very different story - one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance - doomed from the very beginning - to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.An epic portrait of a truly singular era and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Charged with enough alcohol, heartbreak, and profound yearning to transfix even the heartiest of golden age scribes, NICK reveals the man behind the narrator who has captivated readers for decades.

There was no rising from the dead and there was no hand to calm the storms and there was no peace in no valley.In the hurricane-ravaged bottomlands of South Mississippi, where stores are closing and jobs are few, a fierce zealot has gained a foothold, capitalizing on the vulnerability of a dwindling population and a burning need for hope. As she preaches and promises salvation from the light of the pulpit, in the shadows she sows the seeds of violence.Elsewhere, Jessie and her toddler, Jace, are on the run across the Mississippi/Louisiana line, in a resentful return to her childhood home and her desolate father. Holt, Jace's father, is missing and hunted by a brutish crowd, and an old man witnesses the wrong thing in the depths of night. In only a matter of days, all of their lives will collide, and be altered, in the maelstrom of the changing world.At once elegiac and profound, Salvage This World journeys into the heart of a region growing darker and less forgiving, and asks how we keep going - what do we hold onto - in a land where God has fled.

In Michael Farris Smith''s latest gritty epic, a young woman returns home with her child, to her ghost-haunted father, while a religious extremist hunts the storm-ridden territory to find the girl who may hold the key to the region''s apocalyptic future.There was no rising from the dead and there was no hand to calm the storms and there was no peace in no valley.In the hurricane-ravaged bottomlands of South Mississippi, where stores are closing and jobs are few, a fierce zealot has gained a foothold, capitalising on the vulnerability of a dwindling population and a burning need for hope.As she preaches and promises salvation from the light of the pulpit, in the shadows she sows the seeds of violence.Elsewhere, Jessie and her toddler, Jace, are on the run across the Mississippi/Louisiana line, in a resentful return to her childhood home and her desolate father.Holt, Jace''s father, is missing and hunted by a brutish crowd, and an old man witnesses the wrong thing in the depths of night.In only a matter of days, all of their lives will collide, and be altered, in the maelstrom of the changing world.At once elegiac and profound, Salvage This World journeys into the heart of a region growing darker and less forgiving, and asks how we keep going — what do we hold onto — in a land where God has fled.''Michael Farris Smith masterfully takes us on a ride into the growing darkness of a crumbling world. You couldn''t ask for better than that.'' — Michael Connelly''Southern, wet and gritty. Storm-filled and laced with fear and tension, as well as realistic and engaging characters, this world is grimly enticing'' — Joe Lansdale''With a cast of fierce, masterfully drawn characters set loose in gorgeous, hurricane-blasted landscapes, Salvage this World by Michael Farris Smith is riveting: I couldn''t put it down'' — Laird Hunt''Audaciously prophetic. Here''s a near-future and all too plausible southern noir in which the lawlessness already creeping into American democracy has become the norm and in which preachers have abandoned Christ and instead are searching for the new climate Messiah, and the line between good and evil is not only very thin but completely effaced. A rollicking good (dark) read'' — Brian Evenson''An exceptional storyteller in top form'' — Kirkus''Smith melds fire and brimstone with the ravages of hurricanes in this evocative noir of the Mississippi Delta'' — Publishers Weekly

THE ACRES AND ACRES OF FERTILE SOIL - THE TWO-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD ANTEBELLUM HOUSE - ALL GONEAnd so is the woman who gave it to him. The foster mother who saved Jack Boucher from a childhood of abandonment now rests in a hospice. Her mind eroded by dementia, the family legacy she entrusted to Jack is now owned by banks and strangers. And Jack\'s mind is failing too, as concussion after concussion forces him to carry around a notebook of names that separate friend from foe.In a single twisted night Jack is derailed. Losing the money that will clear his debt with the queen of Delta vice, and forcing Jack into the fighting pit one last time. The stakes? Nothing less than life or death.

For fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, “a wonderfully cinematic story” (The Washington Post) set in the post-Katrina South after violent storms have decimated the region.It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months. He had forgotten the last day that it hadn’t rained, when the storms gave way to the pale blue of the Gulf sky, when the birds flew and the clouds were white and sunshine glistened across the drenched land. The Gulf Coast has been brought to its knees. Years of catastrophic hurricanes have so punished and depleted the region that the government has drawn a new boundary ninety miles north of the coastline. Life below the Line offers no services, no electricity, and no resources, and those who stay behind live by their own rules—including Cohen, whose wife and unborn child were killed during an evacuation attempt. He buried them on family land and never left. But after he is ambushed and his home is ransacked, Cohen is forced to flee. On the road north, he is captured by Aggie, a fanatical, snake-handling preacher who has a colony of captives and dangerous visions of repopulating the barren region. Now Cohen is faced with a decision: continue to the Line alone, or try to shepherd the madman’s prisoners across the unforgiving land with the biggest hurricane yet bearing down—and Cohen harboring a secret that poses the greatest threat of all. Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a Southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.“This is the kind of book that lifts you up with its mesmerizing language then pulls you under like a riptide” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

For fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, “a wonderfully cinematic story” (The Washington Post) set in the post-Katrina South after violent storms have decimated the region.It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months. He had forgotten the last day that it hadn’t rained, when the storms gave way to the pale blue of the Gulf sky, when the birds flew and the clouds were white and sunshine glistened across the drenched land. The Gulf Coast has been brought to its knees. Years of catastrophic hurricanes have so punished and depleted the region that the government has drawn a new boundary ninety miles north of the coastline. Life below the Line offers no services, no electricity, and no resources, and those who stay behind live by their own rules—including Cohen, whose wife and unborn child were killed during an evacuation attempt. He buried them on family land and never left. But after he is ambushed and his home is ransacked, Cohen is forced to flee. On the road north, he is captured by Aggie, a fanatical, snake-handling preacher who has a colony of captives and dangerous visions of repopulating the barren region. Now Cohen is faced with a decision: continue to the Line alone, or try to shepherd the madman’s prisoners across the unforgiving land with the biggest hurricane yet bearing down—and Cohen harboring a secret that poses the greatest threat of all. Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a Southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.“This is the kind of book that lifts you up with its mesmerizing language then pulls you under like a riptide” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

In this short story prequel to Michael Farris Smith’s widely acclaimed novel Rivers (a Best Book of 2013 in BookRiot, Daily Candy, and Hudson Booksellers), a series of catastrophic hurricanes along the Gulf Coast prompts the government to institute “The Line,” a boundary between the coastal region and the rest of the country, effectively creating a lawless no-man’s land without electricity, resources, or basic services. Those left behind include Aggie, a snake-handling preacher with a questionable past; Bub and Ava, who live in a FEMA trailer held down by cinderblocks; and Cohen, who refuses to evacuate and leave behind the graves of his late wife and child. As all four struggle to survive below The Line, their stories intersect with violent and unexpected consequences.

"Michael Farris Smith is one of the best writers of his generation, and this very well may be his best work" — Tom FranklinIn the vein of Daniel Woodrell''s Winter''s Bone and the works of Ron Rash, Desperation Road is set in a rough-and-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, and the desire for revenge violently intersect and collide.For eleven years, the clock had been ticking for Russell Gaines as he sat in Parchman Penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta.His time now up, and believing his debt paid, he returns home only to discover that revenge lives and breathes all around.On the day of his release, a woman named Maben and her young daughter trudge along the side of the interstate under the punishing summer sun.Desperate and exhausted, the pair spend their last dollar on a motel room for the night, a night that ends with Maben running through the darkness holding a pistol, and a dead deputy sprawled across the road in the glow of his own headlights.With dawn, destinies collide, and Gaines is forced to decide whose life he will save — his own, or those of the woman and child?Desperation Road is a gripping, guttural thriller of redemption and human frailty. It is due to be turned into a film of the same title starring Mel Gibson.Praise for Desperation Road:"Smith is a meticulous craftsman who evokes his protagonists and their world with patience and subtlety" — Publishers Weekly"Outstanding" — Ron Rash"As rich and alive and wounded as any you''ll find in contemporary fiction" — Wiley Cash"Both poetic and brutal, Desperation Road is a gorgeous and violent book." — Ivy Pochoda

In the vein of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone and the works of Ron Rash, a novel set in a rough-and-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, and the desire for revenge violently intersectFor eleven years the clock had been ticking for Russell Gaines as he sat in Parchman Penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta. His time now up, and believing his debt paid, he returns home only to discover that revenge lives and breathes all around.On the day of his release, a woman named Maben and her young daughter trudge along the side of the interstate under the punishing summer sun. Desperate and exhausted, the pair spend their last dollar on a motel room for the night, a night that ends with Maben running through the darkness holding a pistol, and a dead deputy sprawled across the road in the glow of his own headlights.With dawn, destinies collide, and Gaines is forced to decide whose life he will save - his own, or those of the woman and child?

The acres and acres of fertile soil, the two-hundred year old antebellum house, all gone.And so is the woman who gave it to him. The foster mother who saved Jack Boucher from a childhood of abandonment now rests in a hospice. Her mind eroded by dementia, the family legacy she entrusted to Jack is now owned by banks and strangers. And Jack's mind is failing too, as concussion after concussion forces him to carry around a notebook of names that separate friend from foe.In a single twisted night Jack is derailed. Losing the money that will clear his debt with the queen of Delta vice, and forcing Jack into the fighting pit one last time. The stakes - nothing less than life or death.

''Exceptional'' — Crime Review on The FighterA crooked nose. Scar slices across his forehead. Jack Boucher, he whispered and he shook his head. You ain''t nothing but a broken down dirty dog.Le Boucher, he said to himself in the rearview mirror. The butcher.Jack Boucher, a washed-up bare-knuckle fighter, is battling against decades of drug and alcohol abuse when he returns home to find his world in ruins.Set against the desolate backdrop of the Mississippi Delta, the foster mother who saved Jack as a child now rests in a hospice.Her mind eroded by dementia, the family legacy she entrusted to Jack is now owned by banks and strangers.And Jack''s own mind is failing.Following a lifetime of fighting, concussion after concussion has forced him to carry around a notebook of names warning him who can be trusted and who should be considered a foe.In a single twisted night, after losing the money that would have cleared his debt with the queen of Delta vice, Jack''s life is quickly derailed.Forced into the fighting pit one last time, the stakes are nothing less than life or death. "Jack the Jaw" faces his biggest challenge yet as he must once again fight for his life and everything that was taken from him.A brilliant, gripping novel of endurance and redemption, The Fighter is set to be a major film in 2023 titled Rumble in the Dark starring actors Bella Thorne and Aaron Eckhart.Praise for Michael Farris Smith:''Equal parts brutal and beautiful and harrowing'' — Chris Whitaker''As violent as it is poetic'' — James Sallis''Powerful and lingering'' – New York Journal of Books''Smith...excels in this dark and violent Southern grit-lit thriller.'' — The Library Journal''Crisply written tale of thwarted lives and rawboned courage'' — Booklist

In the tradition of The Stranger and The Old Man and the Sea, this masterful novella by critically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith explores the human spirit and its capacity for faith and forgiveness in an imperfect world and begs the question: how do you survive when hope is lost? Jon and Estelle walk the picturesque Paris streets but are living through the cruelest of realities: the disappearance of their nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer, abducted from the Musee d'Orsay during a class field trip. Jon spends his days slugging through bus terminals and metro halls, posting flyers of his daughter, while Estelle has become a recluse, unwilling to leave the apartment in case the telephone rings. Their relationship suffers as the passing time chips away at the hope of Jennifer's return. Then, a free-spirited artist enters their lives as unexpectedly as Jennifer has left it, luring Jon down a reckless path as he searches desperately for courage in the smallest signs. If their daughter is ever returned to them, will Jon and Estelle both be there to welcome her home?

Eines Tages wird für Estelle und Jon, ein in Paris lebendes französischamerikanischesEhepaar, der Albtraum aller Eltern Realität: Bei einem Schulausflug in das Musée d''Orsay verschwindet ihre neunjährige Tochter Jennifer spurlos. Wochen und Monate vergehen ohne einen Hinweis. Während Jon Handzettel in der Métro und an Busbahnhöfen verteilt, zieht sich Estelle in die Einsamkeit des Apartments zurück und wartetauf das Klingeln des Telefons. Ihre Beziehung leidet unter der enormen Anspannung und der zunehmenden Hoffnungslosigkeit, und bald stelltsich die Frage, ob im Falle einer Rückkehr Jennifers überhaupt noch eine Familie übrig wäre. Dann stürzt sich Jon in eine Affäre mit einer Künstlerin, und die Dinge nehmen eine dramatische Wendung ...Eine atmosphärische Paris-Novelle in der Tradition Hemingways und Camus''.