Southern Cross the Dog

Southern Cross the Dog: A Novel

Eight-year-old Robert Chatham has lost everything--friends, family, home--to the fast waters of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. He lights out across the country, a refugee seeking shelter with (and from) a Homer-esque cast of misfits, hucksters, and ne’er-do-wells: the ladies of a “hotel” of ill repute; a piano player whose talent for the blues matches his seemingly supernatural powers of healing; a close-knit clan of trappers, living in a swampland itself marked for flood behind the wall of a WPA dam. Wherever he finds himself, Robert is gripped and propelled by his fear of a devil closing in behind him. The book’s lineage is clear--the ghosts of O’Connor and Faulkner stalk these pages--but pigeonholing Bill Cheng’s remarkable debut as a Southern Gothic shortchanges the power and originality of its language, the artfulness of its voice. Cheng has written a Bildungsroman of the South, a tale of a country submerged again and again--literally and otherwise--under the high tides of the 20th century. --Jon Foro

Review

“With its evocative settings and rich McCarthyesque language, this Southern gothic packs a punch like a mean drunk.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“Vividly imagined, frequently poetic. . . . It’s hard to resist the sweep of Southern history . . . the way [Cheng] makes the devil as palpably real as the natural world that he pervades. . . . A strong voice and a compelling achievement.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scintillating. . . . Unforgettable.” (Wall Street Journal)

“A novel in the great Southern tradition; think Cormac McCarthy or a 21st-century Faulkner. . . . This book is a winner for lovers of plot; tough, lyrical writing; history; and the trials of the deep South.” (Library Journal (starred review))

“[A] brooding, spine-chilling southern odyssey. . . . Bold and piercing. . . . [Cheng’s] darkly rhapsodic language is so imaginative and highly charged that each word seems newly forged.” (Booklist (starred review))

“Lush and so very often poetic. . . . Southern Cross the Dog has large and small echoes of masterful works, but we should not make any mistake—Cheng has carved out his own creative and accomplished path.” (Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World and All Aunt Hagar's Children)

“An incredibly daring and powerful debut. Not only does Bill Cheng set the language on fire in Southern Cross the Dog, but he creates a whole new territory of story-telling. . . . Cheng, almost literally, writes out of his skin.” (Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin)

“Fantastic and beautifully written, Southern Cross the Dog is an epic and bluesy throwdown in the Southern tradition.” (Nathan Englander, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank)

“A vibrant world grows from the pages of Southern Cross the Dog and its dynamic mix of language and place. Bill Cheng conjures history with precision and style in his exceptional debut.” (Ravi Howard, author of Like Trees, Walking)

From the Back Cover

An epic odyssey in which a young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past

With clouds looming ominously on the horizon, a group of children play among the roots of the gnarled Bone Tree. Their games will be interrupted by a merciless storm–bringing with it the Great Flood of 1927–but not before Robert Chatham shares his first kiss with the beautiful young Dora. The flood destroys their homes, disperses their families, and wrecks their innocence. But for Robert, a boy whose family has already survived unspeakable pain, that single kiss will sustain him for years to come.

Losing virtually everything in the storm's aftermath, Robert embarks on a journey through the Mississippi hinterland–from a desperate refugee camp to the fiery brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the state's fearsome swamp, meeting piano-playing hustlers, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fierce and wild fur trappers along the way. But trouble follows close on his heels, fueling Robert's conviction that he's marked by the devil and nearly destroying his will to survive. And just when he seems to shake off his demons, he's forced to make an impossible choice that will test him as never before.

Teeming with language that voices both the savage beauty and the complex humanity of the American South, Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force of literary imagination that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.

About the Author

 Bill Cheng received a BA in creative writing from Baruch College and is a graduate of Hunter College's MFA program. Born and raised in Queens, New York, he currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife. Southern Cross the Dog is his first novel.

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