Michael Farris Smith is the author of The Fighter, Desperation Road, Rivers, and The Hands of Strangers. His novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, Southern Living, Book Riot, and numerous others, and have been named Indie Next List, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. He has been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France, and his essays have appeared with The New York Times, Bitter Southerner, Writer's Bone, and more. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and two daughters.
"Desperation Road is a brilliantly compelling novel dealing with an
enormously difficult but fundamental reality of the human
condition: how lives lived intensely for years without connection
to or even knowledge of each other can suddenly intersect with
profound consequences. Michael Farris Smith is a prodigiously
talented writer whose new book is not only an exciting read but an
important literary event."
--Robert Olen Butler, author of A Small Hotel
"Desperation Road is an elegantly written, perfectly paced novel
about a man and woman indelibly marked by violence. Characters who
would be mere stereotypes in a lesser writer's hands are fully
realized, and we come to care deeply as they attempt to create a
better life for themselves. An outstanding performance."--Ron
Rash
"A novel that lends dignity and grace to those too often damned,
DESPERATION ROAD is fearless, guttural, and thunderously heartfelt.
Quite simply one of our finest writers at work today, Michael
Farris Smith has made his own place at the table."
--David Joy, author of Where Light Tends to Go
"Anchored by prose that is both poetic and brutal, Desperation Road
is a gorgeous and violent book. But don't be fooled by the title.
Michael Farris Smith's novel teems with the honest and believable
humanity that only the bravest writers dare to search for in the
most troubled souls."--Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street
"Dazzling.... Smith is incredibly gifted; emotion and poetry soak
his straightforward prose, its easy flow masking the precision
behind every word. He imbues the everyday slog of difficult lives
with reverence and grace, painting the faintest glimmer of hope in
opportunities lost and prices paid for flying too close to the
web."
--Shelf Awareness
"Elegant prose and masterful storytelling transform this tale into
a work of literary art.... The author's skills are apparent on
every page. The simplicity and clarity of the writing underlie and
enhance his uncanny ability to unerringly depict a scene. The
Southern, small town locale is so artfully described that when
lightening strikes, the reader flinches."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Michael Farris Smith is one of the best writers of his generation,
and this very well may be his best work--taut, tense, and
impossible to put down."--Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter,
Crooked Letter
"Michael Farris Smith taps into the rhythm of a world I know, and
he does it so well, with such ease, that it's almost like I'm
living it instead of reading it. His anti-heroes teeter always
between the drag-out skids and sweet redemption, and they create a
beautiful, true tension that makes this novel burn and thrum in
your hands."--Jamie Kornegay, author of Soil
"Michael Farris Smith's Desperation Road reads as if it were forged
in a fire stoked by the ghosts of Carson McCullers, Larry Brown,
and William Gay. The result is a novel rife with violent beauty and
incredible grace. Smith's terse, muscular prose encapsulates a
heart that renders this novel as rich and alive and wounded as any
you'll find in contemporary fiction."
--Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind
Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy
"Put the name Michael Farris Smith on your must-read list....
Desperation Road doesn't meet or exceed expectations so much as
blows the doors, windows and roof off the house in which it lives.
It's a book for which you'll want to set aside everything
else."
--Book Reporter
"Smith is a meticulous craftsman who evokes his protagonists and
their world with patience and subtlety. Ultimately, the road of the
novel's title moves just through desperation, but also into a
tentative landscape of hope, and perhaps even
redemption."--Publishers Weekly
"Smith writes in spare, sharply observed language, like a more
colloquial take on Cormac McCarthy.... The steady accumulation of
phrases in Smith's prose conveys a sense of control even as the
characters' lives seem marked by random misfortune."
--Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Smith writes shapely prose and sharp dialogue and everywhere
displays an acute sense of the moments and pain that can define
lives in a small town."
--Kirkus (starred review)
"Smith's lean, visceral prose will keep readers glued to a richly
textured and briskly paced story."
--Booklist
"The book is elegant, even profound, the cadence of the words
alluring, bringing the reader deeper into this world of gray....
Amidst this, there is a glimmer of hope to lead them into
brightness again."--The Clarion-Ledger
"This book tore at my heart and infected my brain. It reminded me
how powerful literature can be, and how often it falls short.
Michael Farris Smith is a huge talent."
--Richard Grant, author of Dispatches from Pluto
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award
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