Southern Revivals – serie

The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth was originally released in 1994 and was the first published book from acclaimed writer Ron Rash. This twentieth anniversary edition takes us back to where it all began with ten linked short stories, framed like a novel, introducing us to a trio of memorable narrators - Tracy, Randy, and Vincent - making their way against the hardscrabble backdrop of the North Carolina foothills. With a comedic touch that may surprise readers familiar only with Rash's later, darker fiction, these earnest tales reveal the hard lessons of good whiskey, bad marriages, weak foundations, familial legacies, questionable religious observances, and the dubious merits of possum breeding, as well as the hard-won reconciliations with self, others, and home that can only be garnered in good time. The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth shows us the promising beginnings of a master storyteller honing his craft and contributing from the start to the fine traditions of southern fiction and lore. This Southern Revivals edition includes a new introduction from the author and a contextualizing preface from series editor Robert H. Brinkmeyer, director of the University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studies.

In her 1981 collection of stories, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, Ellen Gilchrist writes about New Orleans as no other writer. Laced with envy, greed, lust, terror, and self-deceit, her stories will shock and compel readers. Gilchrist's characters, women who dream of independent lives beyond the shadows of their husbands and fathers, resort to outrageous schemes in pursuit of freedom and fulfillment, despite the consequences. The range of emotions and realities encompassed by Gilchrist's work is suggested by the story titles: ""Rich,"" ""There's a Garden of Eden,"" ""The Famous Poll at Jody's Bar,"" ""In the Land of Dreamy Dreams,"" ""Suicides,"" ""1957, a Romance,"" ""Generous Pieces,"" ""Indignities,"" ""Revenge,"" ""Perils of the Nile,"" ""Traveler,"" and ""Summer, an Elegy.

The Copeland family of Listre, North Carolina, gathers every May to clean up the graveyard and talk. Every one of them has stories to tell, and it is Albert Copeland who writes it all down in the notebooks he started years ago to track the progress of the floatplanes he builds. The notebooks hold all the best-kept secrets—of love, loss, and yearnings to let go. The Floatplane Notebooks, Clyde Edgerton’s third novel, first published in 1988, is a multigenerational story of the Copeland family, spanning from the antebellum era to the Vietnam War. The novel cycles through a series of six narrators, including a generations-old wisteria vine that shares elements of a dark history the family members cannot and will not reveal. Edgerton balances the comic with the realistic in a deft portrayal of the rural South and also depicts elements of the sense of loss that is a consequence of war. The Floatplane Notebooks was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club. This Southern Revivals edition includes a new introduction from the author and a preface from series editor Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr., director of the University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studies.

Clyde Edgerton’s Raney is the comic love story of a marriage between Raney, a small-town Southern Baptist, and Charles, a librarian with liberal leanings from Atlanta, united by their shared enthusiasm for country music. The novel both interrogates and honors the faiths and foibles of its subjects as the relationship is tested through trials and revelations. Despite the couple’s differences, their marriage slowly evolves into a relationship of equals in which both are willing to compromise for the good of the other and the marriage. Told though Raney’s naive and mesmerizing perspective as a southern storyteller, serious and sometimes heartbreaking moments give way to a humorous and joyful tale that pokes fun at and holds respect for just about everyone who passes through these pages. Raney, Edgerton’s first novel, was originally published in 1985. It represents some of Edgerton’s most comic, candid, and ambitious writing. This Southern Revivals edition includes a new introduction by the author and a preface from series editor Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr., director of the University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studies.