Blackwood

In this timeless, mythical tale of unforgiving justice and elusive grace, rural Mississippi townsfolk shoulder the pain of generations as something dangerous lurks in the enigmatic kudzu of the woods. The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, though those who've held on have little memory of when that was. Myer, the county's aged, sardonic lawman, still thinks it can prove itself -- when confronted by a strange family of drifters, the sheriff believes that the people of Red Bluff can be accepting, rational, even good. The opposite is true: this is a landscape of fear and ghosts -- of regret and violence -- transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding a terrible secret deeper still. Colburn, a junkyard sculptor who's returned to Red Bluff, knows this pain all too well, though he too is willing to hope for more when he meets and falls in love with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods -- and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.

Literature & Fiction

Michael Farris Smith

United States

Little. Brown and Company

For years, Colburn has been haunted by his father's suicide and the rapid disintegration of his childhood home. As a teenager, Colburn fled Red Bluff, Mississippi, eager to escape his trauma and start fresh elsewhere. But when he returns to town as an adult, lured by an unshakable desire , he finds that his demons have only grown larger in his absence.\nIn Red Bluff resides both a gift and a curse: Colburn meets and falls in love, only to have that love torn from him. The mystery of his lover's disappearance, he learns, is intertwined with that of a strange family living within the kudzu laden undergrowth of the countryside. Pulled back to his father's house, Colburn is forced to finally confront the truth.\nDelivered in propulsive and lyrical prose, Blackwood is the haunting story of a tortured young man, desperate for release from the strangle hold around his heart.

No Exit Press

"NICK"

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.PRAISE FOR NICK'Eminently readable' - Times'No shortage of excitement' - Mail on Sunday'Smith is a well-respected writer with a gift for creating atmosphere' - Telegraph'An accomplished writer of Southern gothic fiction' - Sunday Times'Gripping... the novel rings fiercely true' - Financial Times'Vividly imagined and suffused with pulsing narrative energy and an assured, atmospheric sense of period setting and speech' - Irish Times'An admirable book: atmospheric, haunting, rich in detail and incident' - Literary Review

Nick

Genre Fiction

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, 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.

SALVAGE THIS WORLD

Hachette Book Group and Blackstone Publishing

The Hands of Strangers, Smith's debut novella, is set in the City of Lights and begs the question: how do you survive when hope is lost? Jon and Estelle work against the unanswerable, struggling against one another, against the once beautiful city, against time.

The Hands of Strangers

Mint Hill Books

Desperation Road

Little,Brown

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Michael Farris Smith. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Michael Farris Smith

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Michael Farris Smith. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Blackwood

Blackwood

"NICK"

Nick

SALVAGE THIS WORLD

Blackwood

The Hands of Strangers

Desperation Road