Spotlight on “Kings of Coweetsee” by Dale Neal

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In Kings of Coweetsee, an Appalachian community faces a reckoning when a missing ballot box from a historic election resurfaces with new clues to old corruptions, crimes, and coverups in this gracefully written, intricately plotted new novel.

About Kings of Coweetsee

“If you found us, you’re likely lost, we like to tease strangers.” When Birdie Barker Price finds an old ballot box on her front porch, she opens a Pandora’s Box full of clues to Coweetsee County’s corrupt elections, hidden crimes, and guilty passions. 

She enlists the help of her ex-husband, Roy Barker, currently campaigning for sheriff. Suspicions soon fall on Charlie Clyde Harmon, a felon who served time for a fatal arson at a Black church. He still insists he was framed by the disgraced former sheriff, but no one believes him. 

Filled with false charges, child brides, and murder ballads about the heartache of wronged women and the revenge they seek, Kings of Coweetsee introduces us to a people and place with a vanishing culture and an uncertain future.

Pub date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781646034550
Publisher & Source: Regal House Press
Dist. by IPG

Praise for Kings of Coweetsee

“It is time for readers everywhere to acknowledge what we in Western North Carolina already know: Dale Neal is simply one of the most natural storytellers writing novels today.”—Kevin McIlvoy, author of At the Gate of All Wonder 

“Dale Neal’s Kings of Coweetsee has at its center a reconstruction of a community’s history, and it’s no ordinary history, containing, among other crimes, fixed elections and various forms of mayhem. This novel has a wonderful cast of colorful characters, good- and evil-doers, who show us the underside of local and national American life. Their voices will stay with you long after you close the book.”—Charles Baxter, author The Sun Collective

“Kings of Coweetsee is a tale of power and intrigue with an ache at its heart as old as love itself. Dale Neal writes with the penetrating vision of an archaeologist unearthing the dark ironies of a thorny past. He’s a born story-teller—his prose is graceful and his eye is keen.”—Kathryn Schwille, author of What Luck, This Life

“In Kings of Coweetsee, Dale Neal artfully loops his mountain tale in and out of the lives of innocents and villains, the lovelorn and the depraved, money-hungry newcomers and old-timers alike, in a present-day county ruled by men who buy votes and conspire in ruination for their own gain. … As in Carson McCullers’ Ballad of the Sad Café, the genius of this novel is that it sings like a ballad: dire, sweet, and fierce, each character’s fate twisted and true.”—Marjorie Hudson, author of Indigo Field

“Dale Neal, with a reporter’s keen eye for detail, has brought to life a fictional mountain township, that, on further reflection, might not be totally fictional. Certainly the details ring true. This book is both an evocation of a disappearing culture and a picture of electioneering chillingly relevant to our times. A good read!”—Wayne Caldwell, author of Woodsmoke

“[Dale Neal’s] respect for the trenchant backwoods wisdom of his characters is always present, as is the dirt-poor heartbreak of unrequited love and the high plaintive lonesome hiccups of the traditional ballads that stab into the listener’s broken places and settle there. Kings of Coweetsee will shift the ground beneath your feet.”—Keith Flynn, editor of Asheville Poetry Review

Pub date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781646034550
Publisher & Source: Regal House Press
Dist. by IPG

About Dale Neal, Author of Kings of Coweetsee

Dale Neal is the author of Appalachian Book of the Dead, shortlisted for the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award; Cow Across America, winner of the Novello Literary Award; and The Half-Life of Home. His short stories and essays have appeared in Our State, Smoky Mountain Living, North Carolina Literary Review, Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. He earned an MFA in creative writing at Warren Wilson College. A former longtime journalist with the Asheville Citizen-Times, he lives in Asheville.

You can find and follow Dale Neal on his website, on Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Titles by Dale Neal

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