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The Lost Country

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About this listen

Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the Navy, and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying.

On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D.L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are. Hounded at every turn by scams, vigilantes, grievous loss, and unspeakable violence, Edgewater navigates the long road home, searching for a place that may be nothing but memory.

©2018 William Gay (P)2018 Recorded Books Inc Crime Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Gothic Historical Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Scary Small Town & Rural Vigilante Justice
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I’m thinking I might have preferred reading the book, although the narrator is brilliant. Only because I could have skipped bits - mostly the endless drinking and appalling aftermaths - Roosterfish is the most wonderful creation and equally wonderfully brought to life by the reader - and you can develop a fondness for Edgewater. But the other characters are either completely weird or totally amoral. Not that Roosterfish and Edgewater give more than a passing nod to morals, but they have brains, which none of the others possess. This is a sort of Southern Gothic, so I suppose that’s acceptable- and the gothic incidentals, including haunting landscapes, are reasonably creepy and certainly effective. Some of it’s very funny, especially the Roosterfish sections, and some of it is deeply depressing as everyone and everything appears squalid and seedy. It’s a difficult listen as a result, even though the narrator does a brilliant job. Worth a credit, though.

A tough listen but beautifully written

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