William Gay (author)
| William Gay | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 27, 1941 Hohenwald, Tennessee |
| Died | February 23, 2012 (aged 70) Hohenwald, Tennessee |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genre | Literature |
William Elbert Gay (October 27, 1941 – February 23, 2012) was an American writer of novels, short stories and essays.
Gay was born in Hohenwald, Tennessee. After high school, Gay joined the United States Navy and served during the Vietnam War. After returning to the States, he lived in both New York City and Chicago before returning to Lewis County, Tennessee, where he lived from 1978 until his death.
Even though he had been writing since the age of fifteen, Gay did not publish anything until 1998, when two of his short stories were accepted by literary magazines. Before then, Gay made his living as a carpenter, drywall hanger, and house painter.
In 1999, Gay published his first novel, The Long Home. Gay was recognized and marketed as "the real thing," a new Larry Brown.
The Long Home belongs firmly in the Gothic tradition of Southern literature (Southern Gothic), and the echoes of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Cormac McCarthy haunt the prose. Gay displayed a keen sense of storytelling, and his rural characters bring to mind those of Erskine Caldwell and Flannery O'Connor. The novel won the 1999 James A. Michener Memorial Prize and sold well enough to start a bidding war for his second novel. Provinces of Night was published in late 2000 and confirmed Gay’s knack for storytelling. It furthermore cemented Gay’s status as the most obvious heir to the Faulkner/McCarthy legacy, and later formed the basis for the 2010 independent film Bloodworth. In 2002, Gay published a collection of stories, I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, and in 2006 Gay's third novel, Twilight was published. With its story of a kinky undertaker who hires a hitman to kill a nosy teenager, Twilight is Gay's most straightforward Southern Gothic novel.
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