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The Name of the Nearest River
“Alex Taylor is a fresh new voice, not just in Kentucky, but in American literature.”Chris Offutt
Like a room soaked in the scent of whiskey, perfume, and sweat, Alex Taylor's America is at once intoxicating, vulnerable, and full of brawn. These stories reveal the hidden dangers in the coyote-infested fields, rusty riverbeds, and abandoned logging trails of Kentucky. There we find tactile, misbegotten characters, desperate for the solace found in love, revenge, or just enough coal to keep an elderly woman's stove burning a few more nights. Echoing Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, Taylor manages fervor as well as humor in these dusky, shotgun plots, where in one story, a man spends seven days in a jon boat with his fiddle and a Polaroid camera, determined to enact vengeance on the water-logged body of a used car salesman; and in another, a demolition derby enthusiast nicknamed "Wife" watches his two wild, burning love interests duke it out, only to determine he would rather be left alone entirely. Together, these stories present a resonant debut collection from an unexpected new voice in Southern fiction.
Alex Taylor has worked as a day laborer on tobacco farms, as a car detailer at a used automotive lot, as a sorghum peddler, as a tender of suburban lawns, at various fast food chains, and at a cigarette lighter factory. He holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and now teaches at Western Kentucky University. He lives in Rosine, Kentucky.
184 pages, Paperback
First published February 19, 2010
8 people are currently reading
199 people want to read
About the author
Alex Taylor
4 books13 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
This is Alex^^^^^^^^^Taylor, where ^=space. (9 spaces)
Alex Taylor lives in Rosine, Kentucky. He has worked as a day laborer on tobacco farms, as a car detailer at a used automotive lot, as a sorghum peddler, at various fast food chains, as a tender of suburban lawns, and at a cigarette lighter factory. He holds an MFA from The University of Mississippi and now teaches at Western Kentucky University. His work has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, American Short Fiction, The Greensboro Review and elsewhere.
This is Alex^^^^^^^^^Taylor, where ^=space. (9 spaces)
Alex Taylor lives in Rosine, Kentucky. He has worked as a day laborer on tobacco farms, as a car detailer at a used automotive lot, as a sorghum peddler, at various fast food chains, as a tender of suburban lawns, and at a cigarette lighter factory. He holds an MFA from The University of Mississippi and now teaches at Western Kentucky University. His work has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, American Short Fiction, The Greensboro Review and elsewhere.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 22, 2021
Dark and disturbing and noir to the very bone, these tales are set in Kentucky and they mean business. Squatter's Bottom, Chiggerville, the Doomer Road. A batch of chili you may want to avoid. A demolition derby that segues into something else entirely. Noodling for catfish. A pair of rusty pliers. Fair warning, if you have delicate sensibilities, start running now and don't look back. Beautiful words cannot mask the ugliness that abounds here. If you are a fool for stories that leave grit in your teeth and an addled brain, this is a book that will please.
January 21, 2022
When William Gay, Chris Offutt and Tom Franklin tell you that Alex Taylor is a seriously good writer, you take note. The Name of the Nearest River is up there with the all best short story collections. Melancholy, rage and madness run through all these stories. There isn't a weak story here, and while comparisons to Thom Jones and Flannery O'Connor are a huge compliment, Alex Taylor has an utterly unique voice. Very difficult to pick a favourite but ''Winter in the Blood'' will stay with me for a long time. A very solid 5 stars.
August 22, 2012
I had the pleasure of having Alex Taylor as my English professor at WKU a few years ago. His stories are just as beautifully written as he is well spoken. I expected nothing less.
One of my favorite pieces of advice he gave to our class: "I want you to put a splinter under the fingernail of America, watch the facial expressions that follow and put that into words to create your paper."
Incredible man, incredible book.
One of my favorite pieces of advice he gave to our class: "I want you to put a splinter under the fingernail of America, watch the facial expressions that follow and put that into words to create your paper."
Incredible man, incredible book.
September 28, 2010
A fine, powerful debut bursting with language and metaphor that reminds me of Barry Hannah's AIRSHIPS. I look forward to what might follow from this impressive young author.
June 11, 2010
Really loved this. Any book that includes noodling and multiple homicides is ok in my library.
Read
March 5, 2010"Now the sunken highway is still there. Drive past it someday and you'll see what it is. It is a span of concrete lost amid dirty waters, the way of all terminal journeys, and it is profitable to consider, just for a single moment, the way we settle into the want of things and that perhaps, given the bitter nature of life, what we are really after is to be stolen from, to be beset by thieves and have all our struggle end in bereavement. It's lesser and more ignoble things that bring most men to tears."
October 15, 2014
This book is amazing. It was recommended by Frank Bill, who is another great author. The final story, "Winter in the Blood", was so good it gave me chills. I look forward to reading more by Alex Taylor.
October 19, 2022
Halfway through the book I jotted down, “these stories are my favorite kind of stories, wild with a half-life of violence and beauty.”
March 25, 2016
This is one of the best collections of short stories I've read in a very long time. Taylor's muscular language is seconded only by his imagination. Each story was a joy to read.
September 13, 2010
This is quite a book, roundhousing its way around some familiar tropes to build a work that is original yet completely familiar, if that makes sense. Five stars for sure.
January 28, 2013
Just flat out pitch-perfect.
January 20, 2018
This is as good a collection of short stories as you'll find. Fans of Breece "DJ" Pancakes and Thom Jones will delight in Taylor's rendering of the downtrodden and the misunderstood.
April 4, 2019
Beautifully written stories about Kentucky during various time periods from post-Revolution to present day. The characters are often down on their luck, lost, lonely. A strong collection in the tradition of writers like Ron Rash, Chris Offutt, and Tom Franklin.
May 16, 2018
Got this at a college bookstore in Grinnell, Iowa. Absolutely fantastic, what a gem! Shades of Hunter S. Thompson, but darker and more haunting.
June 25, 2018
3.5 stars, great southern short stories
March 7, 2019
(4.5) My favorite was "At Late or Early Hour"
August 20, 2019
Good throughout, but the final story is perfection. Wow.
December 6, 2021
The last story, the longest one, too is the best. Just a couple stories I didn’t understand but all were well written with beautiful descriptions. I’ll read more by him.
June 3, 2010
Equal parts lyricism and grit; Taylor's Kentucky dialog gets in yr bones (maybe especially my WV bones); something classic about these stories, like I'm really being told a tale and it's being spun right here, tonight, right in this room.
Here is a voice that really defines a world - esp. the world of the demolition derby, of rivers of mythic catfish, of lonesome forgotten places. I think of Proulx, of Junot Diaz, Breece Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, Giardina, and of course Faulkner and O'Connor; maybe Pancake is closest, though I don't see Pancake's ache and darkness in Taylor. Taylor keeps all this company, but he holds his own.
I'm struck by how often his characters are near death, how they (and their loved ones who may or may not be that loving or loved) look at death without sentimentality and even with some satisfaction or expectation, resignation and calm.
I like that these stories hover in a contemporary, outmoded rural Appalachian experience, except for the penultimate story, my least favorite, "A Courier Among Green Trees," which is well-crafted but wooden in its language for me, more caricatured with the revenge-seekers on horseback, I suppose; although a few other stories rub shoulders with caricature, this is the only one that hits it head-on for me. For the most part, Taylor's Kentucky folks live and breathe. (The final story, too, misses a note for me, echoing O'Connor's "Good Man Is Hard to Find" -- killers out and about ready to kill out of craziness -- but the drama leans too far into the territory of horror, like a few of of B Pancake's.)
I note "This Device Must Start on Zero" for how skillfully it handles its large cast of "crash derby" participants, each member very particular; it's as if they all make up a clunky choir that somehow pulls off a terrific number.
I've had in mind lately the idea that, tooling away on our stories, we are somehow working out our salvation. That phrase came to mind many times as I read Taylor's stories by the wood stove.
(Thanks for this recommendation, Caroline.)
Here's one of the best story openers I've ever read; it gives you a taste:
It opens "Equator Joes' Famous Nuclear Meltdown Chili":
"Across the road from the Sinking Star drive-in was a field of mown hay where the maligned and bereft had gathered. This was the widower Clay Gaither and his six boys, ages five to twelve, and they had been warned from that place before. Now their truck sat ragged in the fescue, its radiator wheezing as they mounted a Dutch oven over a fire of hickory kindling...." 43
Here is a voice that really defines a world - esp. the world of the demolition derby, of rivers of mythic catfish, of lonesome forgotten places. I think of Proulx, of Junot Diaz, Breece Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, Giardina, and of course Faulkner and O'Connor; maybe Pancake is closest, though I don't see Pancake's ache and darkness in Taylor. Taylor keeps all this company, but he holds his own.
I'm struck by how often his characters are near death, how they (and their loved ones who may or may not be that loving or loved) look at death without sentimentality and even with some satisfaction or expectation, resignation and calm.
I like that these stories hover in a contemporary, outmoded rural Appalachian experience, except for the penultimate story, my least favorite, "A Courier Among Green Trees," which is well-crafted but wooden in its language for me, more caricatured with the revenge-seekers on horseback, I suppose; although a few other stories rub shoulders with caricature, this is the only one that hits it head-on for me. For the most part, Taylor's Kentucky folks live and breathe. (The final story, too, misses a note for me, echoing O'Connor's "Good Man Is Hard to Find" -- killers out and about ready to kill out of craziness -- but the drama leans too far into the territory of horror, like a few of of B Pancake's.)
I note "This Device Must Start on Zero" for how skillfully it handles its large cast of "crash derby" participants, each member very particular; it's as if they all make up a clunky choir that somehow pulls off a terrific number.
I've had in mind lately the idea that, tooling away on our stories, we are somehow working out our salvation. That phrase came to mind many times as I read Taylor's stories by the wood stove.
(Thanks for this recommendation, Caroline.)
Here's one of the best story openers I've ever read; it gives you a taste:
It opens "Equator Joes' Famous Nuclear Meltdown Chili":
"Across the road from the Sinking Star drive-in was a field of mown hay where the maligned and bereft had gathered. This was the widower Clay Gaither and his six boys, ages five to twelve, and they had been warned from that place before. Now their truck sat ragged in the fescue, its radiator wheezing as they mounted a Dutch oven over a fire of hickory kindling...." 43
June 16, 2012
Talented fellow. Great use of language and it's hard to find much to criticize here. When he starts painting the weeds of the land, there's smoke almost reminiscent of Pancake and Richard Currey. When he gets heavy and somber and existential, I can see that ghostly breath I'd lie down for: "...but I will tell you there are words in the flesh that the tongue cannot know. I have spoken them many times, quietly, and their noise is enough." And "The Coal Thief?" Somber throughout, perhaps THE Appalachian metaphor of the past 200 years. Put it in the anthology to teach during Appalachian Lit/Culture classes now, before it gets lost in the shuffle.
He does the other things well, too: the odd-birds, odd-tales, odd-conflicts that are quirky, living, and enjoyable---reminding of Lisa Koger or Lex Williford's stories---not that these are by any means bereft of serious matters.
My only bias: I wish there was more of the former at the expense of the latter. But haggard hills a callin', "The Coal Thief" wore Tolstoy to our land.
He does the other things well, too: the odd-birds, odd-tales, odd-conflicts that are quirky, living, and enjoyable---reminding of Lisa Koger or Lex Williford's stories---not that these are by any means bereft of serious matters.
My only bias: I wish there was more of the former at the expense of the latter. But haggard hills a callin', "The Coal Thief" wore Tolstoy to our land.
October 27, 2010
Alex Taylor's first collection of short stories covers rural Kentucky and doesn't leave out a single myth or preconception. Part Flannery O'Connor, part Deliverance, part original voice, these stories amuse, shock and sympathize. No fear of language, violence, or hurt blankets each picture of a life few of us know.
Winter in the Blood, The Evening Part of Daylight, and The Coal Theif are favorites.
So proud to have Mr. Taylor's signature in my book.
Winter in the Blood, The Evening Part of Daylight, and The Coal Theif are favorites.
So proud to have Mr. Taylor's signature in my book.
August 6, 2010
A wonderful short story collection. Alex Taylor has been compared to Flannery O'Connor, and it's easy to see why. Taylor's characters live on the fringe of society in a tough, dirty, duke-it-out world. Violence is very much a part of this world from little boys who chop off their puppies' tails to acts of self defense with a pair of rusty pliers. Another great read for the summer.
October 8, 2014
Not only did I love this gritty short story collection, but I named it my best book of 2010 on my blog! You can read my full review here: http://www.thelitwitch.com/?p=1571 And for anyone who is interested, I also interviewed Alex Taylor about this book. That interview can be read here: http://www.thelitwitch.com/?p=2297
March 29, 2010
Amazing stories and great language, will be one of the greats if he keeps this up.
May 3, 2010
Met the author at AWP in Denver a few weeks ago. Nice guy, great collection.
June 23, 2011
Some of these stories I absolutely loved. Some seemed to taper off in ways that disappointed me. But Taylor's an excellent creator of stories, and it felt to me like these stories needed to be told.
August 13, 2012
Grit and dirt, loneliness and violence; this
collection is America.
July 30, 2013
Great stories, great imagery, lots of interesting language. This book works especially well on a sensory level.
January 16, 2011
Gothic and gorgeous and compelling, but gave me nightmares about giant catfish.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews