{"id":10330,"date":"2023-03-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10330"},"modified":"2023-03-13T20:04:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T00:04:31","slug":"no-dull-sentences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10330","title":{"rendered":"No Dull Sentences!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Award-winning novelist William Gay, who died just over a decade ago, was heralded as a new voice in Southern fiction from the time his first novel, The Long Home<\/em>, was published in 1999. When I read a reviewer\u2019s comment that Gay was \u201cincapable of writing a dull sentence,\u201d he sounded like someone to find out more about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview published in 2013, he talked about being considered an heir to Faulkner, O\u2019Connor, and Wolfe, and said that his favorite Faulkner novel is As I Lay Dying<\/em>, because in it Faulkner writes about ordinary people. That\u2019s a hallmark of Gay\u2019s own writing, and draws on a long career that included house-painting and hanging drywall to support his family by day, writing out stories by night. Understandably, given that schedule, his first book wasn\u2019t published until he was in his late fifties. But he had been on that path since seventh grade, when a teacher noticed his incessant reading and gave Gay a copy of Thomas Wolfe\u2019s Look Homeward, Angel<\/em>, as long as he\u2019d talk to him about it afterwards. It became one of his favorite books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Younger people would ask him whether they should write what they want to write, even though it might be a hard road to get it published, or should they turn to genre writing (which is no picnic to get published, either, I\u2019d add). His advice was always that they should write what they wanted to write. I think that\u2019s what lets you, as a writer, put your heart into it and gives you the fortitude to stay with it over time through revisions, more revisions, critiques, and seeking publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many book marketing folks say authors should have their ideal reader, or audience, in mind. Gay disagrees. He believes that, if you do, \u201cthe work is going to be more bland, with the rough corners knocked off.\u201d It makes a story more generic and he said he\u2019s always tried to avoid being generic. Much of Gay\u2019s work is dark and violent, coming-of-age stories set in the 1940s and 50s, in which a young person must confront evil. (Stephen King, who knows something about evil, said Gay\u2019s darkest, most Southern Gothic book, Twilight<\/a>,<\/em>was his \u201cbest read\u201d in 2008.NOT the vampires.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gay went on a publish several more well regarded novels and a short-story collection with the juicy title, I Hate to See the Evening Sun Go Down<\/em> (2002). His story, \u201cThe Paperhanger\u201d was anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2001<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for Great Reading? It\u2019s my quarterly newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> and receive three prize-winning short stories!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Award-winning novelist William Gay, who died just over a decade ago, was heralded as a new voice in Southern fiction from the time his first novel, The Long Home, was published in 1999. When I read a reviewer\u2019s comment that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Check in with William Gay, whose award-winning work rests on determination to maintain those rough edges.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,174,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2GC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10332,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions\/10332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}