Rating: 
Summary: Powerful
Review: A southern novel has never pulled me in like this before. I needed something to read and I was at a friend's house. I asked her what her favorite book on her bookshelf was and she gave me this one. I'm glad she did. The writing is so powerful, and so lyrical, that I could not put it down. Beyond that, the sentences are so rich, bursting with information, that no pages could be skipped. This is a story about the deep south, before everyone had telephones and automobiles, set in a remote area of Tennessee, a place with its own history and its own rules. You will not regret reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Can I have back the hours I spent reading this?
Review: I didn't enjoy this at all. I thought the premise of the book was a boy trying to find out what happened to Dad. Instead it's mainly about the rise and fall of a hillbilly hoodlum! Text is complete with authentic dialect (yee haa!) I won't waste my time reading anything by this author again in this lifetime. (Yes - boy does learn what happened to Dad-- it's just a dang shame it took nigh 'bout 200 pages!!)
Rating: 
Summary: Starts with a bang, ends with a fizzle
Review: I first read a William Gay story in Harper's magazine. What a great story, I thought. Who is this guy? What else has he written? He's a fiftysomething ex-carpenter. And he's written "The Long Home."The first 100 pages or so immediately hooked me, making me think I had found the next Cormac McCarthy. And at times, when the prose was clicking, it didn't feel as if I was reading a book as walking in someone else's dream. In a fit of joy I almost posted a review without finishing the book. I'm glad I finished it, though, because the last half doesn't fufill the first half's promise. The last read like a primer on how to construct a formulaic Southern goth romance. It's very pedestrian, very planned. Will Winer side with the forces of good with Oliver or will Hardin infect him with his evil? Will he get Amber Rose? It's all very melodramatic and conventional in the end. Cormac McCarthy did it better with "All The Pretty Horses", mixing melodrama and lyricism to a potent affecting mix. "The Long Home" has moments where the prose doesn't seem to be written as it is handed down from God himself. And then it collapses into a "Cold Mountain" mush. And I truly and deeply dispised "Cold Mountain." All in all, the man has talent and I will read his stuff. But I'll be wary.
Rating:
Summary: Starts with a bang, ends with a fizzle
Review: I first read a William Gay story in Harper's magazine. What a great story, I thought. Who is this guy? What else has he written? He's a fiftysomething ex-carpenter. And he's written "The Long Home." The first 100 pages or so immediately hooked me, making me think I had found the next Cormac McCarthy. And at times, when the prose was clicking, it didn't feel as if I was reading a book as walking in someone else's dream. In a fit of joy I almost posted a review without finishing the book. I'm glad I finished it, though, because the last half doesn't fufill the first half's promise. The last read like a primer on how to construct a formulaic Southern goth romance. It's very pedestrian, very planned. Will Winer side with the forces of good with Oliver or will Hardin infect him with his evil? Will he get Amber Rose? It's all very melodramatic and conventional in the end. Cormac McCarthy did it better with "All The Pretty Horses", mixing melodrama and lyricism to a potent affecting mix. "The Long Home" has moments where the prose doesn't seem to be written as it is handed down from God himself. And then it collapses into a "Cold Mountain" mush. And I truly and deeply dispised "Cold Mountain." All in all, the man has talent and I will read his stuff. But I'll be wary.
Rating:
Summary: A dark, lushly written glimpse into evil and redemption
Review: I first read William Gay's work in the Missouri Review a year or so ago, a beautiful, original story that still haunts me. I couldn't wait for his first novel to appear, and I took The Long Home with me on a seven-hour flight. The hours flew by, so absorbed was I in the characters springing up off the page. A wonderful book by an author I hope to see much more of.
Rating:
Summary: Modern Day Faulkner
Review: I know many reviewers here have pointed out the similarities between William Gay's little slice of Tennessee in The Long Home, and Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi. Gay's book is a worthy successor to Faulkner's many masterpieces, and his villain in The Long Home, Dallas Hardin, will remind readers of Flem Snopes. This book is a stunning, honest, brutal gem of a novel with passages of grace and lucidity that simply overwhelm the reader. The action begins with a bang in the Prologue, where we are introduced to moonshiner/squatter Hardin and his stubborn brutality toward the Winer family, as well as his selfish opportunism toward the crippled Hovington. The rest of the novel, with many interesting and amusing side plots (like chicken farmer Weiss and Winer's pal Motormouth), builds to a powerful climax as you sense a looming conflict between good (Winer) and evil (Hardin), as well as the possible romance involving Winer and young Amber Rose. There is an underlying sense of danger in the town, and a history of brutality as you learn gradually of characters who have taken the law into their own hands, while others have the "law" in their pockets. I was also reminded a little of Charles Frazier's moving novel Cold Mountain, but while Frazier's book was at times ponderous and slow, The Long Home moved at a steady, effective pace. The dialogue was right on target at all times, and each characer was richly drawn and stayed true to form. I hope Gay keeps writing these big powerful novels of the deep south, there is a void there that needs filling.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, funny, unforgettable: Buy this book now. Today.
Review: I read this book with an increasing sense of wonder and awe. William Gay has written a moving, heartbreaking novel with people I believe and believe in, with language both poetic and taut, with detail to die for, with humor and wisdom and heart and darkness and a sense of place you might read a thousand books and never find. Buy this book and wrap it in Mylar and stand it on the shelf with your Faulkner and your Cormac McCarthy, and then take it down and start reading it over again. We all keep hearing about the next new voice in American fiction. Well folks, William Gay is a whole varied chorus of voices, all singing in perfect harmony. The song is dark, god yes, but you can't stop listening.
Rating:
Summary: THERE'S SHOT WHISKEY, AND THERE'S SIPPIN' WHISKEY...
Review: Shot whiskey is the type that so strong and just plain nasty that throwing it down your throat in a (hopefully) single swallow is the only way to imbibe it and survive. Sippin' whiskey, on the other hand, while still packing a punch, is more artfully crafted, with all sorts of artful nuances there to savor - you want to take your time with it, so you can more fully appreciate the care with which it was made. William Gay's prose is sippin' whiskey - there's a strength within that will leave you reeling, but there are so many subtleties to be found as well. His characters are vivid and believable, and he brings them to life slowly, rather than burying the reader in a swamp of description. We get to know them as we would a person in our day-to-day lives, through their actions, conversations, and what thoughts they might care to share with us - it's an experience that makes reading this novel all the more precious and amazing. The descriptions that occur within these pages are subtle as well - his vocabulary is astonishing, and when he can't find a suitable word already in general usage, he constructs one (always to good advantage). Time after time, reading this incredible novel, I found myself going over a passage again and again, to make sure that I wasn't imagining the creative powers at work here. Gay's literary gifts are amazing - but he never uses them in such a way as to overpower his characters. The novel is set in rural Tennessee in the 1940s - and that time and place is firmly established within the first few pages. I felt transported as I read it. Gay lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee - and his knowledge of the area and the people, and his obvious empathy toward them, give his fiction a sense of reality that is both gentle and ferocious. Dirt farmers, laborers, bootleggers, lawmen (both honest and crooked), women and men old before their time, young people aching for something - anything - more than what they see around them, what they see as their future if they remain where they are. The story here is basically an old one - that of an evil presence in the midst of normalcy, ignored or tolerated by most of the citizens in the area, that slowly establishes itself as a power not to be questioned without dire retribution. What's the old saying? `Absolute power corrupts absolutely' - the mighty tend to fall mighty hard, and they seldom see it coming. The evil character in this novel - one Dallas Hardin, bootlegger, honkytonk operator, would-be pimp and many more unsavory occupations - is one of the most memorable baddies I've come across in some time. The evil within him is made palpable - you can feel it in the air, it will make your skin crawl - by William Gay's skill. I've already started reading his second novel, and I've got my eye on his collected short stories as well. Gay's work was recommended to me by another author - and it's a recommendation for which I'll be grateful for a long, long time. This is high magick.
Rating:
Summary: THERE'S SHOT WHISKEY, AND THERE'S SIPPIN' WHISKEY...
Review: Shot whiskey is the type that so strong and just plain nasty that throwing it down your throat in a (hopefully) single swallow is the only way to imbibe it and survive. Sippin' whiskey, on the other hand, while still packing a punch, is more artfully crafted, with all sorts of artful nuances there to savor - you want to take your time with it, so you can more fully appreciate the care with which it was made. William Gay's prose is sippin' whiskey - there's a strength within that will leave you reeling, but there are so many subtleties to be found as well. His characters are vivid and believable, and he brings them to life slowly, rather than burying the reader in a swamp of description. We get to know them as we would a person in our day-to-day lives, through their actions, conversations, and what thoughts they might care to share with us - it's an experience that makes reading this novel all the more precious and amazing. The descriptions that occur within these pages are subtle as well - his vocabulary is astonishing, and when he can't find a suitable word already in general usage, he constructs one (always to good advantage). Time after time, reading this incredible novel, I found myself going over a passage again and again, to make sure that I wasn't imagining the creative powers at work here. Gay's literary gifts are amazing - but he never uses them in such a way as to overpower his characters. The novel is set in rural Tennessee in the 1940s - and that time and place is firmly established within the first few pages. I felt transported as I read it. Gay lives in Hohenwald, Tennessee - and his knowledge of the area and the people, and his obvious empathy toward them, give his fiction a sense of reality that is both gentle and ferocious. Dirt farmers, laborers, bootleggers, lawmen (both honest and crooked), women and men old before their time, young people aching for something - anything - more than what they see around them, what they see as their future if they remain where they are. The story here is basically an old one - that of an evil presence in the midst of normalcy, ignored or tolerated by most of the citizens in the area, that slowly establishes itself as a power not to be questioned without dire retribution. What's the old saying? 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' - the mighty tend to fall mighty hard, and they seldom see it coming. The evil character in this novel - one Dallas Hardin, bootlegger, honkytonk operator, would-be pimp and many more unsavory occupations - is one of the most memorable baddies I've come across in some time. The evil within him is made palpable - you can feel it in the air, it will make your skin crawl - by William Gay's skill. I've already started reading his second novel, and I've got my eye on his collected short stories as well. Gay's work was recommended to me by another author - and it's a recommendation for which I'll be grateful for a long, long time. This is high magick.
Rating:
Summary: Superb tapestry of Tennessee rural life half a century ago
Review: The battle of good versus evil is woven through three-dimensional characters, young and elderly. Remorseless murderer Dallas Hardin worsens with age, stealing another's wife and trying to prostitute her daughter. Young Nathan Winer, whose father Hardin killed when the boy was very young, violently objects. Elderly William Tell Oliver knows secrets and knows exactly how to help Winer. The unhurried climax literally tightened my nerves until the most satisfying end. --Roy L. Fish, author of short stories and the suspense novel, ICEMAN.
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