Books like Provinces of Night by William Gay

In 1952, E.F. Bloodworth finally returns to Ackerman's Field in Tennessee after decades of wandering. He left a violent past behind, having killed a deputy thirty years earlier, and now faces three sons who are each estranged: Warren, an alcoholic and flâneur in Alabama; Boyd, who left for Detroit in a vendetta against his wife; and Brady, a homebound soothsayer steeped in voodoo who will stop at nothing to keep his father from seeing his abandoned wife. Only the youngest, Fleming, embraces the return, but his life soon diverges onto an unpredictable route shaped by the enigmatic Raven Lee Halfacre. William Gay’s story, framed in the rich Southern literary tradition, depicts the violence and quest for redemption that define the region’s folklore, culminating in a climax that feels more like an apotheosis than a simple conclusion.

First publish date: 2000