Here's a guy you ought to know more about, and not just because I say so. Here's what his site says.
Charles Dodd White was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1976. He currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina where he teaches writing and Literature at South College. He has been a Marine, a flyfishing guide and a newspaper journalist. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Night Train, North Carolina Literary Review, Pequin, VerbSap, Word Riot and others. His novel Lambs of Men, a story of a Marine Corps veteran of World War I in Western North Carolina will be published by Casperian Books in November 2010. He is currently at work on another novel and a collection of short stories.
One of the reasons I like White and his work (see Night Train issue 9.1 for an advance look at his forthcoming novel) is that we mesh fairly tightly on aesthetics. Read what he has to say in this interview with Dog Eat Crow World, which I could have written, pretty much, as reasons why I founded this blogazine.
I am interested in a more rural setting because I easily tire of the urbane cleverness I see in so much contemporary fiction. Stories that do not deal with the heart of human pain and triumph bore and offend me. They're noncommital, banal and cowardly. They're exactly the reason literature has no direct bearing on the contemporary American culture. Dealing with the nature of fate and death against the backdrop of the natural world is always going to resonate with readers. Arch tales of missing percolaters will not.
The discerning reader can find more to read by following links to Pank, Necessary Fiction, and Word Riot. And don't forget Lambs of Men, whatever you do.
"Charles Dodd White's Lambs of Men is a beautifully wrought, rigorous work, its language forged in the fiery mind of a true artist. This is literature of admirable pureness and integrity."
Robin Lippincott, author of In the Meantime
"Written in the tradition of Charles Frazier and Ron Rash, Lambs of Men is that most rare of books: a violently beautiful story that is, at heart, a work of prose poetry."
Mark Powell, author of Prodigals and Blood Kin
"Charles Dodd White has written this rich novel of the mountains as though he's been saving every word of it for a lifetime. A book full of blood and beauty and bone, a story that carries the reader through time, through lives, through dirt and fire. This book strikes the reader's heart so deeply that readers will be called back to it again and again. He has written this family and their circumstances with such tender care…A rare book where every sentence delights and startles. It's a small gem that commands the reader's full attention and entire heart."
Crystal Wilkinson, author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street
