Welcome to Litsy!

#boohaul from City Lights bookstore in Sylva, NC. The David Joy book and the Ron Rash short story are autographed (City Lights is Rash and Joy‘s home bookstore). #CountryNoir

Bearskin is gorgeously written but understated. It‘s literary without sacrificing plot. It‘s bloody without being mindless. It contains a touch of the supernatural (maybe) and a touch of the surreal. It walks a fine line between the people and the place of the mountains of Virginia.

#CountryNoir

Full review at https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/country-noir-bearskin-james-m...

The Burroughs are kings of Bull Mountain. From moonshine to marijuana to meth, Bull Mountain has been home to a Burroughs led criminal enterprise for the last century.

With plenty of blood and buckshot and more than one carefully plotted, unexpected switchback in the story, what follows is one heck of a crime novel.

#CountryNoir

My full review - https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/country-noir-bull-mountain-br...

Not exactly a “train” book, but I‘m going for it nonetheless. #countrynoir

“She was in a state of suspended animation, waiting to hear her husband say the words she knew he‘d say. It made him who he was. He didn‘t have a choice. It was his father‘s pride. It was the reason she loved him and the one thing she was completely sure would crush her heart into dust.” #CountryNoir

Gods of Howl Mountain has got granny women, moonshine, revenuers, moonshine runners, early stock car racing, and end-of-the-road roadhouses and whorehouses, snake handlers. All nestled in the mountains of northwest North Carolina.

Brown‘s prose is beautiful and powerful without being inaccessible or overly literary.

#CountryNoir

Full review: https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/country-noir-gods-of-howl-mou...

“The whole valley once smoked like a vent in the earth, people said, the blue smoke of a hundred still-fires spread dusky and ragged across the sky. Whiskey was life. It fed and clothed. A single mule, which could carry only four bushels of corn out of the valley, could carry twenty-four bushels‘ worth of corn whiskey to market.” #CountryNoir

I just started this one late last night and I‘m already hooked. We‘re traveling so I left the dust jacket at home. #CountryNoir

I have a review up for Harry Hunsicker's The Devil's Country. It's a popcorn thriller, enjoyable but not entirely satisfying. I still recommend it if you're looking for a "cult up on the hill" story, a knock-off Jack Reacher book, or a story about a disgraced Texas Ranger and you've already read Bluebird, Bluebird. #CountryNoir https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/country-noir-the-devils-count...

Winter‘s Bone is a landmark work of #CountryNoir, lyrically and evocatively written, with a genre-defining, indomitable female protagonist. Woodrell‘s short story collection The Outlaw Album remains my favorite, though. Full review - https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/country-noir-winters-bone-by-...