Embedded Files
“Christopher Lee Nelson's debut volume of stories ... is a wonderfully gripping contemplation of how place – the North Carolina Appalachian foothills hamlet of Tucker in the shadow the Brushy Mountains – exerts a chokehold on his cherished, unforgettable characters, linked by locus and their desperate yearning to escape what they’ve paradoxically come to love and loathe in equal measure. Nelson keenly depicts the very ether they inhale, what they eat for breakfast, the thwarted dreams they ponder as the sun sets, and the words that spill from their mouths. These stories are written with a poet’s ear, the documentarian’s exhaustive gaze, and the visceral gut-attention to detail and authenticity it takes for a writer to get it right the first time.”
“Christopher Lee Nelson's debut volume of stories ... is a wonderfully gripping contemplation of how place – the North Carolina Appalachian foothills hamlet of Tucker in the shadow the Brushy Mountains – exerts a chokehold on his cherished, unforgettable characters, linked by locus and their desperate yearning to escape what they’ve paradoxically come to love and loathe in equal measure. Nelson keenly depicts the very ether they inhale, what they eat for breakfast, the thwarted dreams they ponder as the sun sets, and the words that spill from their mouths. These stories are written with a poet’s ear, the documentarian’s exhaustive gaze, and the visceral gut-attention to detail and authenticity it takes for a writer to get it right the first time.”
-- Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-2014) & author of The Act of Contrition & Other Stories
-- Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-2014) & author of The Act of Contrition & Other Stories
"When a North Carolina milltown loses its factory, it goes down hard. And if that's where you're from, you have to decide whether you're going down with it. Nelson follows the benighted residents of Tucker, N.C., with an eye that misses nothing, in a gorgeous prose at once elegaic and humane without the slightest hint of sentimentality. Add this book immediately to Appalachian Literature's highest shelf."
-- Wilton Barnhardt, Author of Lookaway, Lookaway; western alliances; and gospel.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse