Tom Franklin

Drawing on storytelling traditions as old as southern literature itself, Grit Lit is the first anthology devoted to contemporary writing about the Rough South. From literary legends to emerging voices, the acclaimed writers featured in this collection view their hardscrabble South without romanticism or false nostalgia, not through moonlight and magnolia but moonshine and Marlboros. This is th...

A popular Southern grit-lit author, Franklin took a bizarre turn in his second novel, which is like a Peckinpah Western scribbled over by O’Connor and Hannah, or HBO’s Deadwood on acid. The story is set in an Alabama town and follows a malady-ridden, one-eyed dwarf, and a teenage prostitute as they embark on a violent jumble of glorious depravity. Franklin cranks up the Gothic tricks to eleven her...