Forceful…. Johnson’s sharp prose … evokes Ron Rash—by way of Charles Bukowski.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Lee Johnson is a natural-born writer. He inhabits every one of his characters—the good, the bad, and those that swing back and forth.” —John Casey, author of Spartina
“A worthy addition to the growing canon of contemporary Appalachian noir…. Nitro Mountain is like the home we failed to escape.” —Electric Lit
“Brutal and beautiful…. You’ll find yourself engrossed in the hard times and bad choices of [Nitro Mountain’s] characters and, ultimately, the humanity we all share.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“[A] darkly stunning tale of stark dramas and tragic lives.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“Perturbingly good. Hazardous. Addictive. Harrowing and hilarious too.” —Joy Williams, author of The Visiting Privilege
“Dark, frightening and staggeringly good.” —Deep South Magazine
“Johnson is a literary juggernaut. . . . Superbly well-written and tightly crafted.” —Martha’s Vineyard Times
“Cover to cover, the book exerts a fierce magnetic pull, sucking its reader into a profound desolation.” —Nashville Scene
“Lee Clay Johnson punches through the basement window of the American Canon Library, gropes across the spines of Leon Rooke, Denis Johnson, yes, Flannery O’Connor and Mr. Bill, and, heir-apparent to none and all, achieves a grasp farther than his reach. Cut-bloodied smelling of bourbon, he retrieves the book you have in your hand, some far and ancient tale best pronounced from Genesis. A masterwork of a first novel.” —Mark Richard, author of House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer’s Journey Home
“Excellent . . . bold, arresting and well-timed [with] intelligent and sympathetic portraits of hard-up people making bad, justifiable decisions.” —BookPage
“Exquisitely stark and gritty . . . Raw, yet relentlessly compelling.” —Publishers Weekly
“Appalachian noir at its darkest and most deranged . . . An ambitious, disturbing, and daring debut.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“A suspenseful, action-packed thriller that’s also a brilliant study in humanity and what pushes someone over the line.” —Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life
“In Nitro Mountain, Lee Clay Johnson gives us … a cast of low-life bar rats trying to feel or figure out what, if anything, is precious, and how to save one another before it’s too late.” —Darcy Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair
“There is rough, real music in the voices of these characters. . . . Hilarious, harsh, original.” —Amy Hempel
“The sort of reckless, dangerous comedy Flannery O'Connor might have written if she'd known more about drink, drugs, and country music. . . . Lee Clay Johnson is a writer with abundant and scary gifts and consummate skill; Nitro Mountain is a novel you can't put down and won't forget.” —David Gates, author of A Hand Reaches Down to Guide Me
An astonishing, even shocking debut--darker than a bad night in hell--that is written with both humor and heart by "a writer with abundant and scary gifts and consummate skill." Set in a bitterly benighted, mine-polluted corner of Virginia, Nitro Mountain follows a group of people bound together by alcohol, small-time crime, and music. There's Leon, a hapless bass player who can embroil himself in trouble just by getting out of bed in the morning. And his would-be girlfriend, Jennifer, who's living with Arnett, the town's most dangerous thug--and hoping Leon will help poison him. And there's Arnett himself, a psychopath for the ages--albeit so charming and deranged, so strikingly authentic, that he arrests the reader's attention at first sight and holds it fast. His mirror image, a singer-songwriter named Jones, has his own moral issues, though at least he's trying to be a good man. The bright if battered soul who pulls us through this story is Jennifer, struggling heroically to survive the endemic hopelessness and violence that have surrounded her since birth. Relentless? Yes. But nothing remotely gratuitous: only the pain and misery that inspire so much of the music these people love more than life itself.
1122567012
Nitro Mountain
An astonishing, even shocking debut--darker than a bad night in hell--that is written with both humor and heart by "a writer with abundant and scary gifts and consummate skill." Set in a bitterly benighted, mine-polluted corner of Virginia, Nitro Mountain follows a group of people bound together by alcohol, small-time crime, and music. There's Leon, a hapless bass player who can embroil himself in trouble just by getting out of bed in the morning. And his would-be girlfriend, Jennifer, who's living with Arnett, the town's most dangerous thug--and hoping Leon will help poison him. And there's Arnett himself, a psychopath for the ages--albeit so charming and deranged, so strikingly authentic, that he arrests the reader's attention at first sight and holds it fast. His mirror image, a singer-songwriter named Jones, has his own moral issues, though at least he's trying to be a good man. The bright if battered soul who pulls us through this story is Jennifer, struggling heroically to survive the endemic hopelessness and violence that have surrounded her since birth. Relentless? Yes. But nothing remotely gratuitous: only the pain and misery that inspire so much of the music these people love more than life itself.
19.99
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19.99
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Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171257712 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 05/17/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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