Rating: 
Summary: Best Book I've Read in the Last 5 Years
Review: I can add no more to the previous review except to say that this is easily the best new book oc fiction I've read in the last five years, and I read 50-60 books per year. It is better and more genuine than his excellant first book "The Long Home." Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: I grew up in this region and I can tell you, this book did not ring true to me at all. I read all the wonderful reviews and I held high hopes for the book. I felt it was completely dis-jointed and a huge disappointment. This is only the second book in my life that I felt like I was sorry I had wasted my time by reading it. Maybe the 'high literary' content was just lost on a country girl. This is not descriptive of the people of the region - sorely disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite "The Long Home"
Review: I ordered this book before it was published solely because of Gay's first novel, "The Long Home." There is no Dallas Hardin in this book: E.F. Bloodworth is mysterious and magnetic, but he is not the embodiment of evil, unfortunately. There's also no Nathan Winer: Fleming Bloodworth is likable, but his drifting was not as interesting as Winer's unconscious search for the truth. I love William Gay's style and I enjoyed every page, but if you're looking for the haunting, darkness and rain feel of "The Long Home," you might be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite "The Long Home"
Review: I ordered this book before it was published solely because of Gay's first novel, "The Long Home." There is no Dallas Hardin in this book: E.F. Bloodworth is mysterious and magnetic, but he is not the embodiment of evil, unfortunately. There's also no Nathan Winer: Fleming Bloodworth is likable, but his drifting was not as interesting as Winer's unconscious search for the truth. I love William Gay's style and I enjoyed every page, but if you're looking for the haunting, darkness and rain feel of "The Long Home," you might be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Good to Read, Good to Know
Review: I read Gay's first novel, The Long Home, and thought that, as well as being a good story, its language captured the East Tennessee rural folk as well as any I'd ever seen in print. No, William Gay's not William Faulkner, and I'm not Bennett Cerf, but Provinces of Night is a good Southern novel. Seventeen year old Fleming Bloodworth is probably a little too good to be totally believed, but there is something in his character that rings true, something that reminds me of my own dad. There are many men who have walked out from behind mules in East Tennesse and managed to make their ways in a world they were not born in nor raised to. There are many others who were never able to make that transition. You don't get to choose your own roots, but they don't have to strangle you either.
Rating:
Summary: Good to Read, Good to Know
Review: I read Gay's first novel, The Long Home, and thought that, as well as being a good story, its language captured the East Tennessee rural folk as well as any I'd ever seen in print. No, William Gay's not William Faulkner, and I'm not Bennett Cerf, but Provinces of Night is a good Southern novel. Seventeen year old Fleming Bloodworth is probably a little too good to be totally believed, but there is something in his character that rings true, something that reminds me of my own dad. There are many men who have walked out from behind mules in East Tennesse and managed to make their ways in a world they were not born in nor raised to. There are many others who were never able to make that transition. You don't get to choose your own roots, but they don't have to strangle you either.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing story about a family
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The wording and descriptions found throughout the book are just wonderful. You really feel as if you are there. The characters are very real. Some of them are not very likeable, but I was interested in them just the same. Part tragic/part comedy, this is a very enjoyable and rewarding read.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books I Have Read!!
Review: Nearly perfect. Great story, beautiful prose, humor, sadness, thought provoking, page turning. All of that, and one sentence on page 155 I could make absolutely no sense out of.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books I Have Read!!
Review: Nearly perfect. Great story, beautiful prose, humor, sadness, thought provoking, page turning. All of that, and one sentence on page 155 I could make absolutely no sense out of.
Rating:
Summary: Superb dialogue
Review: One of the best novels I've read in the past few years, "Provinces of Night" shows the influence of Flannery O'Connor and of Cormac McCarthy, but is also highly original. The language and dialogue are what make it most enjoyable. The story is both funny and dark.
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