The residents of Jackson, a quiet county in the North Carolina mountains, are happy believing racism is largely in their past. Until that is, reality intervenes in David Joy’s new novel, Those We Thought We Knew. Joy uses the perspectives of three local characters: two white law enforcement officers and one Black woman to strip the veneer from a place and people who thought ... Read More...
When These Mountains Burn
There are few things I love more than an evocative writer. Someone who makes me feel what and where they’re writing about. Two that come to mind immediately: Pat Conroy in Prince of Tides, not only for the low country of South Carolina, but for New York when Tom goes there and Kent Haruf for Holt, Colorado, a small town that served as the setting for his Plainsong trilogy. I ... Read More...
Dark Fiction: The Line That Held Us
I hadn’t planned on a week of reviews about dark (or difficult) fiction, but realized that’s where my reading had gone after finishing David Joy’s The Line That Held Us. It’s the story of Darl Moody, who while poaching on a neighbor’s land, shoots and kills another man. The man he kills is the brother of Dwayne Brewer, a behemoth of a man, known for violence and ... Read More...
