Fried Chicken and Coffee

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