I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories

by William Gay

Book Overview

William Gay established himself as "the big new name to include in the storied annals of Southern Lit" (Esquire) with his debut novel, The Long Home, and his highly acclaimed follow-up, Provinces of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074324088X
• ISBN13: 9780743240888
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Lyrical

William Gay has staked out the Tennessee/Alabama border country and made it his own playground. The stories are compelling and have a depth that is unusual in short fiction. I put Gay right up there with Raymond Carver and John Cheever as a champion of the American short story. Gay's greatest strength is his ability to use dialogue to move the story forward. There is nothing artificial or stilted about any of the words used by the characters in Gay's stories. The usual southern melancholy and pathos is present in each story--we are dealing with broken hearts, eny, greed, dementia in old folks, quick and lethal brutality. It's all there. But done in such a free and easy manner that you almost forget about the terrible events unfolding before your eyes and get lost in the lovely use of language. And one crucial point, the stories have a conclusion. Too often I find that modern fiction has no beginning, no middle and no end. Gay starts his stories and ends his stories--he first and foremost is a tremendously gifted storyteller, of that there is no question.

MORE BRILLIANT WRITING FROM WILLIAM GAY

Just last year, through a recommendation from author Marlin Barton (also a fine writer), I discovered the amazing work of William Gay. I read his two novels, THE LONG HOME and PROVINCES OF NIGHT, and I stood in awe of his creative abilities, the seemingly effortless depth of his descriptive passages, and the glow of truth that shone from within his characters. I purposefully waited a bit to read his short story collection, just to give myself a little space to `step back' and absorb the work contained here on its own merit, without considering the novels. I was not disappointed - the stories in this volume are every bit as finely crafted as his longer works, every bit as rewarding.Gay presents an amazing panoply of characters and situations here for the reader - all within the `confines' of his realm, rural Tennessee. Several of the stories are populated by characters that also appeared in the novels - but the works here stand on their own. The area of the country with which Gay concerns himself is a rich one - he knows it well, obviously. No one could write like he does by simply inventing every single detail. He is a master at his craft - I suppose becoming a writer well into his adult life allowed the `juices' to steep and age and mellow. Whatever the process, the results are astonishingly rich - as with his novels, I found myself re-reading passages here and there, marveling at the craftsmanship they contained, at the natural flow of the words. They seemed to roll gently and powerfully into my mind as I read, carrying me along with them.There is both humor and pathos contained in these stories - along with every shade of emotion and experience that lies in between the two. Gay's humorous passages never make fun of his characters - he has far too much respect for these people to allow that to happen. Likewise, the touching sections never become maudlin. The balance that he strikes is deft and skilled. Many of these tales are dark, but even within these, there is an abundance of light to be found and experienced. There is violence here - but there is also love and tenderness. There is adultery and betrayal - but there is also deep-hearted, blind-force devotion. There is family - joyous and painful scenes, just like in `real life'.In the title story, we meet old man Meacham - `older than Moses', according to on character. He has been put into a nursing home by his son, a lawyer for whom the old man sacrificed to put through law school. He finds the nursing home to be a `factory that makes dead people', and flees to his homestead, only to find that his son has attained power of attorney over him and rented it out to family that Meacham sees as `white trash' and lazy, `all the way down to his walk'. The old man sets up housekeeping in a tenant shack on the property and sets about to annoy Choat, now living in Meacham's house, with the perseverance of a bedbug that can neither be found nor killed. Several of the incidents relate

A Masterpiece

In this collection, smart old men outfox their educated sons, wives, lawyers and the law. The dialogue is hilarious and action is often comic--William Gay is a witty writer in the way of southerners who are much smarter than they let on. But he can't hide his brilliance--his prose is much too good. Savor these stories about the raw truth of human emotion, of characters who have the courage to act on their passions, despite the consequences. His characters erupt in violence but there is always a reason for it, perhaps incomprehensible to readers who have not dealt with the extinction of their way of life. Several characters are not sane, others have bouts of Alzheimers, and others confront marital infidelities. In each case a force larger and more deadly than the character pushes him or her into a horrific decision. Gay is masterful in dipping in and out of these "insanities," which gives some of the stories an eerie surreal quality. No other writer has written so passionately about the Tennessee landscape--through Gay's eyes, it's seductive, ruined, ebullient, and haunting. The final story is bittersweet and beautiful, and gives hope that perhaps William Gay does believe in love, if only for a short time before it, too, is snatched away.

Vivid landscape of flawed Southerners

William Gay's stories woven from the fabric of rural Tennessee depict flawed Southerners trapped by wrong decisions, yet his writing embraces the reader with a visual landscape blending the natural terrain with tormented souls. I discovered his fiction first in the Oxford American, then read with enthusiasm his novels The Long Home and Provinces of Night, finding from them an honest storyteller who appreciates the older, traditonal elements of good fiction--placing the reader in the bosum of nature and delving into the soul of unique characterization. You find yourself wanting more, trapped by his engaging style, straight-forward dialogue and prose about country-bled commonfolk as clear to the ear and the eye as a Tennessee morning and as absorbing as the frozen blue ridges. He has a way of mystery that feeds the imagination and you feel the torment in the underbrush of stories that ring in your head long after finishing the last paragraph.--Jesse Earle Bowden, author of Look and Tremble: A novel of West Florida and Always the Rivers Flow.

Nearly Faultless

William Gay has previously published two extremely good novels, and now offers readers a collection of short stories that are exceptional. "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down", is a collection of 13 short stories that once again bring readers to the places made familiar in Gay's Tennessee. The "expert" review that is offered above for this book is accurate only in as far as it lists some of the titles of the work. Beyond listing these facts, the editorial simply spotlights the book was never read. The statement that Gay fails to connect his characters and their actions to the reader is absurd.There are some lighter moments in this collection especially in the book's opening tale. Generally these stories depict bad decisions by good people, or the latter being victimized by the evil conduct of others. And in most cases these are not a poor choice by essentially good individuals, the damage that is done is intentional, and flows from inherent flaws these characters are made of.As to the idea of connecting with his characters, in most cases I don't want to, in most cases nobody knows why certain damaged minds inflict on others the suffering they cause. Being left to wonder what absence of humanity causes a woman to thoughtfully strap her kids in car seats and then deliberately drown them in a lake is not an act that is understandable. Misconduct like the one I mentioned and others that assault us every day can be rationalized by a variety of experts, but they are never explained. These acts are so fundamentally aberrant to most people that "connecting" with these people, even if possible, is worthless. There is no explanation why people commit atrocities, endless books speculate, none provide answers.William Gay is a brilliant writer who has the gift of seeing and recording what most of the world only superficially views if they see it at all. These stories show a variety of dark shades of human action, lack of human compassion, and they do so brilliantly. If you are left feeling anger, uncomfortable and cold, he has done his job well.That this collection has basically been ignored, as judged by its sales rank, only confirms that mass produced, repetitive, mediocre and derivative writing is still the anesthesia of choice.