The Lost Country
The editors of the William Gay Archive and Dzanc Books are featured in a roundtable interview within the Volume 38.2-3 Fall 2018/Winter 2019 issue of The Chattahoochee Review. Michelle Dotter of Dzanc Books, Lamont Ingalls, Sheila Kennedy, Susan McDonald, Paul Nitsche, and Michael White discuss William Gay’s ongoing legacy and the releasing of his posthumous works.
The Chattahoochee Review is a literary journal published by Perimeter College at Georgia State University.
Ten years after it was first announced, The Lost Country is to be released on July 10, 2018 from Dzanc Books.
“The language and the imagery Gay uses is so vividly haunting that I want to savor it all. Definitely a must-read for fans of Southern Literature.”
—Catherine Bock, Parnassus Books
“Like so many fans of Gay's, I've been waiting to read this seemingly mythical work, The Lost Country, for quite some time....Gay's elegiac prose sings once again as he breathes life into his characters and mines his patch of soil with the skill of the old masters. The Lost Country is the story of Billy Edgewater and his hard journey through a post World War II South filled with the downtrodden—hucksters, racists, drunks, bad or lost men and women, all trying to make it in a harsh rural setting that is unforgiving yet beautiful. It's a helluva good ride and I can't wait to recommend it.”
—Cody Morrison, Square Books
“The Lost Country lands like a shimmering gift from the beyond. For those of us who cherish and honor Gay's tremendous talent, his bold method of seeing the waste and wonder we are, this posthumous novel is a reminder of what we miss: the language pitched toward the sublime, his men and women grappling for redemption in a world that has damned them, his understanding of grace in the presence of human badness. When Gay died too soon, we lost much, but The Lost Country gives a piece of him back to us.”
—William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark
“The novel exposes us to a deliciously dark southern underbelly, one that, when paired with its sparse, lean prose and quiet intensity, becomes incredibly mesmerizing.”
—The Next Best Book Club
For ordering and more information, please visit Dzanc Books.
A radio interview with J.M. White from April 2018 regarding finding the manuscript of The Lost Country and Little Sister Death, along with observations about what it was like to get to know William Gay and his place in modern literature.
We are finalizing the final proof of The Lost Country, to be published by Dzanc Books in July, 2018. Words cannot describe how exciting it is to get the advance reader and see all of our hard work realized. Everyone at the William Gay Archive is grateful to Dzanc Books and Publisher and Editor in chief Michelle Dotter for their dedication in seeing this book through.