West Virginia
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
"Beautiful, menacing." —Publishers Weekly
"A new and promising debut writer, who has found his own voice by speaking the voices of two places at once." —Electric Literature
Read more
West Virginiais a moody wild ride of a novel. Dark, momentous, soulful, deeply human - the book turns the mind inside out, questioning the places we live and the reasons why we both leave them and come back." —Vol.1 Brooklyn
"Halstead's descriptions are thoroughly artistic, whether they're of the party scene or the big city's gritty human rainbow or the strip-mined mountains and franchise-glutted highways." —Kirkus Reviews
Jamie Paddock spent his youth trying to escape West Virginia. Persistent determination and the sacrifice of all emotional attachment led him to New York City. There, his need to become what the city demands of him, along with the strong gravitational pull of his new obsession, Sara, fuel a growing anxiety that his home, and his old way of life, are disappearing forever. But Jamie revisits the seamy underside of Appalachia when he returns to his holler to investigate what led his father to suicide, finding parochial prejudices, strange sexual tensions, and family skeletons. Will Jamie learn what really happened to his father and heal his old wounds? Can he escape West Virginia a second time, or will he succumb to its ominous control?
Liked West Virginia? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked West Virginia. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
