About this item
An Amazon Best Book of 2015, A Kirkus Reviews' Best Book of 2015"A brave book with beautiful sentences on every page." - New York Times"Piercing...a tour de force." - Los Angeles TimesIn 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle, fishtailed, flipped over in the road, and died instantly. Soon thereafter, David's life hit a downward spiral. His career came to a standstill, his marriage disintegrated, and his drinking went from a cocktail-hour indulgence to a full-blown addiction. He found himself haunted not only by George A.'s death, but also by his brother's manic depression, a hereditary illness that overlaid a dark family history whose roots now gripped David.
About the Author
David Payne was born in North Carolina and attended the Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of five novels-- Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street, Early From the Dance, Ruin Creek, Gravesend Light, Back to Wando Passo--and a memoir, Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother's Story, forthcoming from Grove Atlantic in August 2015. Visit his author website at Linda Barrett Osborne, Washington Post Book World:"[Payne] understands that place most families inhabit-somewhere between love and necessity, between truth and myth, between self and the expectations, the dreams and, ultimately, the separateness of others. .. Writing this fine evokes a past time, but also a state of boyhood that is timeless. "
