Little Sister Death
William Gay
***
6/16/2016
I hate giving any work by Gay (one of my favorite authors) only
three stars, but this one was published after his death and is obviously an
unfinished manuscript. It’s the story of a writer who comes to live in
Tennessee to write about a haunting known as the queen of the haunted dell--a
legend or story famous to most Tennesseans and others across the country. But
the writer’s complete story is never told.
The title comes from Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Editors worked from Gay’s hand-written and
typed notes and filled in a history of the story, but although Gay’s lyrical
prose is present, the book seemed not ready for publication. And the Gothic
tale is very, very gloomy and features macabre violence.
But the introduction by Tom Franklin, a friend of Gay’s and a
fellow writer, was worth the price of the book. I spent a day in William Gay’s
home three years prior to his passing and found him just as Tom described. He showed
me his book and music collection and one of his paintings. He also told me
about his completed manuscript The Lost
Country, which still remains unpublished. Guess Dzanc (publisher of this one)decided to go with
this one first.
Gay told me of his troubles with his publisher at the time (not
Dzanc) on The Lost Country, but he
did not mention this manuscript. I don’t think he would have wanted it
published in this form, because he was a perfectionist. His haunting prose and descriptions are here,
but it is just not his best work.
