Hill William - by Scott McClanahan (Paperback)

About the Book

Scott McClanahan is the only real successor we have to Breece D'J Pancake. Old-fashioned storytelling from modern Appalachia.

Book Synopsis

"You can tell McClanahan feels something when he writes and when he lives. He wants you to feel something too."--The Huffington Post

I walked up to the side of the mountain like I used to do when I was a little boy. I looked out over Rainelle and watched it shine. The coal trucks and the logging trucks were still gunning it through town. They were still clear cutting the mountains and cutting the coal from the ground. Then I heard my mother calling and it was like I was a child again.

Beginning to read Hill William is like tuning into a blues station at 4:00 a.m. while driving down the highway. Scott McClanahan's work soars with a brisk and lively plainsong, offering a boisterous peek into a place often passed over in fiction: West Virginia, where coal and heartbreak reign supreme. Hill William testifies to the way place creates and sometimes stifles one's ability to hope. It reads like a Homeric hymn to adventure, to the human comedy's upsets and small downfalls, and revels in its whispers of victory. So grab coffee, beer--whatever gets you through the night--and join Scott around the hearth. Lend him your ear, but be warned: you might not want it back.

Scott McClanahan's work has appeared in New York Tyrant, Bomb, Vice, and Harper Perennial's Fifty-Two Stories. His books include Stories II and Stories V! In 2013 Two Dollar Radio will release his book Crapalachia.

Review Quotes

Praise for Crapalachia (also by Scott McClanahan)

"McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. [McClanahan] aims to lasso the moon... He is not a writer of half-measures. The man has purpose. This is his symphony, every note designed to resonate, to linger."
--New York Times Book Review

"Crapalachia is the genuine article: intelligent, atmospheric, raucously funny and utterly wrenching. McClanahan joins Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin as a master chronicler of backwoods rural America."
--The Washington Post

"The book that took Scott McClanahan from indie cult writer to critical darling is a series of tales that read like an Appalachian Proust all doped up on sugary soft drinks, and has made a fan of everybody who has opened it up."
--Flavorwire

"McClanahan's deep loyalty to his place and his people gives his story wings: 'So now I put the dirt from my home in my pockets and I travel. I am making the world my mountain.' And so he is."
--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"[Crapalachia is] a wild and inventive book, unquestionably fresh of spirit, and totally unafraid to break formalisms to tell it like it was."
--Vice

"Part memoir, part hillbilly history, part dream, McClanahan embraces humanity with all its grit, writing tenderly of criminals and outcasts, family and the blood ties that bind us."
--Interview Magazine

"A brilliant, unnerving, beautiful curse of a book that will both haunt and charmingly engage readers for years and years and years."
--The Nervous Breakdown

"McClanahan's style is as seductive as a circuit preacher's. Crapalachia is both an homage and a eulogy for a place where, through the sorcery of McClanahan's storytelling, we can all pull up a chair and find ourselves at home."
--San Diego City Beat

"Epic. McClanahan's prose is straightforward, casual, and enjoyable to read, reminiscent at times of Kurt Vonnegut. Crapalachia is one of the rare books that, after you reach the end, you don't get up to check your e-mail or Facebook or watch TV. You just sit quietly and think about the people of the book and how they remind you of people you used to know. You feel lucky to have known them, and you feel grateful to McClanahan for the reminder."
--Rain Taxi Review of Books

About the Author

Scott McClanahan is a writer from West Virginia. His work has appeared or has been featured in New York Tyrant, Bomb, Vice, and Harper Perennial's 52 Stories. His books include "Stories II" and "Stories V!" In 2013 Two Dollar Radio will release his book Crapalachia. He helps run the video-terrorist group Holler Presents with C.J. Oxley. Their films include "Preacher Man", "The Education of Bertie Mae McClanahan", "Lil' Audrey's Last Day of School", and the 34 film video monologue/poem project, "The Life and Death of Scott McClanahan". You can view this work at hollerpresents.com. He is also part of the band Holler Boys who will release their first album Holler Boys' Greatest Hits in 2013. He is married to Sarah. His children are Iris Grace and Samuel Ray. His father-in-law is Elonza Tavenous Turner. Scott likes chicken wings and beer and cheese. He is happy you bought this book from New York Tyrant Books.