Crossroads
Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic
By Andy Duncan; Brett Cox
(Tor Books, Paperback, 9780765308146, 384pp.)
Publication Date: June 23, 2005
Other Editions of This Title: Hardcover
Categories: Fantasy - Anthologies
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As William Faulkner once observed, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." And the past of the American South lives on in a long literary tradition where fantasy and reality blur. It is evident in the writing of giants such as Faulkner himself, Flannery O'Connor, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Manly Wade Wellman, Truman Capote, Alice Walker, and many others. Steeped in this tradition and proud to be its inheritors, storytellers and editors F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan have gathered together stories of the unseen and magical American South by some of the most brilliantly talented Southern writers of our time.
From darkly imagined, powerful tales by Bret Lott, Lynn Pitts, Kalanu ya Salaam, Brad Watson, and Don Webb to a deeply affecting and sensual story by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, to atmospheric works by Richard Butner, James L. Cambias, and Jack McDevitt, to wildly funny stories by Scott Edelman and Michael Swanwick, these original fictions will delight readers who appreciate the unique wealth and breadth of the Southern literary tradition and its natural affinity for the fantastic. With the addition of wonderful reprinted stories by Michael Bishop, Fred Chappell, Andy Duncan, John Kessel, Kelly Link, Sena Jeter Naslund, Daniel Wallace, and Gene Wolfe, this collection is a crossroads of styles and themes where Southern and Fantastic literary traditions meet.
Together these stories paint a wide canvas of the real and mythic South in all its fabulous, terrible, joyous, chaotic uniqueness. They are set in all the Southern landscapes of the mind, from the shores of South Carolina to the city of New Orleans, from small-town Mississippi to the streets of modern Atlanta, from the ghosts of ante-bellum splendor to the shadows of what might be. The contributors range from realistic to Gothic, from magic realists to satirists. What they share in common is the South and the endless stories it inspires.
F. Brett Cox is the author of many powerful works of literary fiction. A Southerner by birth, he currently lives in Vermont.
Andy Duncan has won the World Fantasy Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. His first story collection is Beluthahatchie and Other Stories. He lives near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
"The memorable pieces of fiction in Crossroads, and there are many, are remarkable as stories first, for the tidings they bring of our shared human experience."
--Vince Brewton, Southern Scribe Reviews on Crossroads
"To my mind, Crossroads is clearly on the road to being one of the best anthologies of the year--in any genre. Or out of all genres. It's just a bunch of great writing with a southern theme."
--The Agony Column on Crossroads
"The crossroads in the title of this unique anthology refers to the intersection between southern letters and the literature of the fantastic, encompassing sf as well as fantasy. All the contributors hail from the South and constitute a diverse medley of veterans, rising stars, and relative newcomers. Sf grandmaster Gene Wolfe contributes a grisly tale of Texas voodoo in "Houston, 1943," in which a child becomes trapped in his own nightmare. "My Life Is Good," by renowned sf editor Scott Edelman, puts a physicist in the awkward position of traveling back in time to prevent singer Randy Newman (a New Orleans native) from becoming president. In "Rose," perhaps the volume's most striking entry, best-selling mainstream author Bret Lott adds another grim detail to the life of Emily Grierson, the groom-slaying heroine of Faulkner's classic "A Rose for Emily." Twenty-six entertaining tales in all, from the darkly disturbing to the bitingly satirical, showcase southern writers' enduring penchant for fusing southern sensibility and magical realism."
--Booklist on Crossroads
Praise for Andy Duncan:
"The finest writer of short fiction produced by American science fiction in some time."
--Nick Gevers, sfsite.com
"He is truly one of the brightest new hopes to appear on the SF scene in the past few years. . . . His voice is the true storyteller's voice, wonderfully crafted prose that reads as if it is rolling right out of his mouth extempore."
--Rich Horton, Tangent Online
"If Harper Lee and Gene Wolfe had a love child, Andy Duncan is it."
-- Craig Jacobsen, SFRA Review
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