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“I read Rappawan quite compulsively, in a way I haven’t for quite a long time. I think it’s very good. This story provides what Emily Dickinson calls transport, and it leaves me with a mood, feeling, atmosphere — something hard to name.... I had all but given up on reading contemporary novels but found myself eager to get back to this one.” — TRACY KIDDER, winner of National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize, and author The Soul of a New Machine, Mountains Beyond Mountains, and other best-sellers
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NEW FROM FEARLESS ASSISTED PUBLISHING
AND DARLING THUNDER PRESS
:
THREE NEW NOVELS
by James Conaway
Rappawan
Tregaron Springs
Since My Baby Left Me
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One of America's most original and versatile writers, JAMES CONAWAY is the author of such novels as The Big Easy, World's End and Nose, and a host of nonfiction narratives including a best-selling trilogy about California's famed Napa Valley. As the late TV anchor Jim Lehrer wrote, “Conaway’s prose is as gorgeous as the northern California he describes.” The Far Side of Eden, the third book of the Napa trilogy, was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and was described in the New York Times Book Review as “an important story, emblematic of our time.” Of Conaway’s The Kingdom in the Country, Wallace Stegner wrote: “He
got into places and activities that most Westerners never get close to, and he reports them
with verve, wit, irony and a very sharp eye.”
In a new collection of three short novels crafted over thirty years, James Conaway returns to some favorite themes and settings with the clear vision and compelling prose that have distinguished all his works.
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Published by Darling Thunder Press in collaboration with Fearless Literary
Print ISBN 979-8-218-44813-4 • 344 pages • $17.95 • ebook $9.95
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print and Kindle editions___________________________________
More advance reviews for RAPPAWAN:
"I finished this in one ravenous gulp. Part Evan Connell, part Wendell Berry, and part Elmore Leonard, the characters are so striking, evolve so wonderfully and the book is full of woods wisdom and lore. The plot swells symphonically, all its recognizable parts annealing in a completely satisfying form." — HENRY ALLEN, a Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism and author of Where We Lived — Essays on Place and other books "The wisdom of nature, the nature of wisdom, the beauty of snow falling on flowing water — and a narrator who knows that doing the right thing may not save us, but it’ll have to do till something better comes along…" — PETER COYOTE, author and actor
"The unnamed narrator in Conaway’s latest novel has spent his life in an impoverished rural community at the base of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains on his beloved river, the Rappawan. Now widowed and having recently lost his lover, Esther, he is dismayed by the painful, fatal bow-and-arrow wound-ing of a mother bear that Esther had enjoyed watching with her cub. Acutely sensitive to nature and wildlife, producing some of the most evocative and beautiful descriptions in the novel, he rages against the threats posed to his formerly unspoiled rural environment, and the effects of alcohol and drugs on locals. Life brightens with the return of Esther’s free-spirited daughter, Lurie, and her small daughter, Maeve. Renewed in purpose, he assumes responsibility for the family he never had." — SARA DAY, author of Coded Letters, Concealed Love and Not Irish Enough and, as a curator at the Library of Congress, Women for Change
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Novel Previews:
Rappawan • The narrator has spent his life in an impoverished rural community at the base of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains on his beloved river, the Rappawan. He is dismayed by the painful, fatal bow-and-arrow wounding of a mother bear and, acutely sensitive to nature and threats posed to his formerly unspoiled rural environment, decides to do something about it. He’s surprised by the return of a free-spirited young woman with a little girl who proves to be his granddaughter. Renewed in purpose, he assumes responsibility for the family he never had and decides to murder the drug dealer threatening his newfound happiness.
Tregaron Springs • A prequel to the highly acclaimed Nose, this novel plunges the reader into the rarefied world of a prestigious estate in a fictional Napa Valley and the three beautiful sisters who inherited it. The youngest, Trew Vassy, navigates the rivalry between her older siblings as she tries to save not only the winery and the unspoiled wilderness surrounding it but also the fortunes of the immigrants who have devoted their lives to Tregaron Springs. The sisters’ parents died in a plane crash in the vineyard and Trew suspects that her real father is the retired Mexican wine-maker. The arrival of Clyde Craven- Jones as a young, sexy English wine critic further complicates a story rich in discovery and pathos.
Since My Baby Left Me • The setting is 1950s Memphis and the privileged white world of booze, golf, and adultery. Serving it is Harmon Brown, a washed-up black musician once locally famous who knew Robert Johnson and other legendary bluesmen. Now reduced to a waiter at the Memphis Country Club, Harmon is accused of sitting in the white section of a lunch counter uptown, beaten by police and thrown into jail. Tuke Harrington, a prominent attorney and former football star, takes pity and defends Harmon against the wishes of all his friends and Boss, the mayor who runs Memphis. Tuke and Harmon’s unlikely alliance results in the burning of Harmon’s little house but also the inadvertent, brief resurrection of Harmon’s career.
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PREVIOUSLY PRODUCED WITH FEARLESS LITERARY
(click on covers for descriptions and ordering)
