The semiautobiographical story of an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame.

"Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit." -The Washington Post Book World Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green. Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won't slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of...

Nine classic short stories portraying the isolation, criminality, morality, and rebellion of the working class from award-winning, bestselling author Alan Sillitoe The titular story follows the internal decisions and external oppressions of a seventeen-year-old inmate in a juvenile detention center who is known only by his surname, Smith. The wardens have given the boy a light workload because he shows talent as a runner. But if he wins the national...

The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. Rye yearns for a steady job and a home; his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth...

"A novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, following the intersecting lives of the local families fighting to protect their homeland, the West Indian laborers recruited to dig the waterway, and the white Americans who gained profit and glory for themselves"-- It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring...

Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it's Janine, Miles' soon-to-be ex-wife, who's taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it's the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in...

Named by the Guardian as one of our top ten writers of rural noir, Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny. The strong but flawed women of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor, and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter...

Ten-year-old message-runner Freddie Musgrove's silence is bought after he witnesses a scene of unremitting horror at The Towers, but years later, when the horror reoccurs, Freddie must fight to remain uninvolved.

At the Habitation, a large and decaying riverside house, the Crawfords were on the verge of bankruptcy - and when Martha Mary was obliged to take on the responsibility for her family, a series of dramatic events occurred that would test her indomitable fortitude.