In a rural Tennessee town in the 1950s, 'Twilight' by William Gay tells the story of a teen brother and sister seeking revenge on an undertaker who desecrates the dead. The siblings discover the undertaker's dark secret and attempt to blackmail him, leading to a twisted chain of events involving hired killers and a chase through the Harrikin, a heavily wooded area. The prose in the book is described as having a Southern Gothic style, with a lack of punctuation for dialogue adding to the stark and dark atmosphere of the narrative.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of necrophilia, graphic descriptions of death, violence, and psychological horror.
From The Publisher:
Suspecting that something is amiss with their father's burial, teenager Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie venture to his gravesite and make a horrific discovery: their father, a whiskey bootlegger, was not actually buried in the casket they bought for him. Worse, they learn that the undertaker, Fenton Breece, has been grotesquely manipulating the dead.Armed with incriminating photographs, Tyler becomes obsessed with bringing the perverse undertaker to justice. But first he must outrun Granville Sutter, a local strongman and convicted murderer hired by Fenton to destroy the evidence. What follows is an adventure through the Harrikin, an eerie backwoods filled with tangled roads, rusted machinery, and eccentric squatters-old men, witches, and families among them-who both shield and imperil Tyler as he runs for safety.With his poetic, haunting prose, William Gay rewrites the rules of the gothic fairytale while exploring the classic Southern themes of good and evil.
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Twilight?
About the Author:
William Gay was born in Hohenwald, Tennessee. After high school, he joined the United States Navy and served during the Vietnam War. For many years he made his living as a carpenter, drywall-hanger and house painter before publishing, in 1998, his first novel, The Long Home, at the age of 57. He went on to publish the story collection I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down and two further novels, Provinces of Night and Twilight, in his lifetime.
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