The Autumn months of 2020 will welcome new releases from some terrific authors I’ve worked with recently. Stay tuned for posts on titles coming soon from James Wilson, Eric Freeze, and Gar Anthony Haywood. October’s upcoming release is The Beasts of Belladonna by Gilbert Allen.
The Beasts of Belladonna: Stories by Gilbert Allen
Slant Books | Fall 2020 | 186 pp.
Hardcover (9781725265639) $34 | Paperback (9781725265646) $19
Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, Gilbert Allen’s collection of fifteen linked stories explores every corner of the suburbanized foothills of South Carolina. Belladonna—a gated community with Tuscan architectural covenants—boasts a championship golf course, compulsory three-car garages, faux cobblestone sidewalks, and a lively assortment of peculiar pets.
As you wind your way through the neighborhood you encounter a skeptical high-school biology teacher and his stubbornly devout Methodist wife; the county’s self-appointed Pavement Imperfection Coordinator; a sociopathic TV reporter and her would-be savior (a young minister nicknamed Jesus of Malibu); and a Guatemalan housekeeper tormented by her employer’s cat, just to name a few of the quirky neighbors you’ll meet at Belladonna.
Gilbert Allen is the author of seven books of poems and the short story collection, The Final Days of Great American Shopping. His work has received the Robert Penn Warren Prize from The Southern Review and Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize. He is the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University and a member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the state’s literary hall of fame.
Sallie Vandagrift 