The latest novel from Glenn Taylor, assistant professor of English at West Virginia University and National Book Critics Circle Award-finalist hits bookstores July 13.

“A Hanging At Cinder Bottom” is the third book from the author, following “The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart” and “The Marrowbone Marble Company.”

Set the year of Mark Twain’s death and the panic-inducing glance of Halley’s Comet, “A Hanging at Cinder Bottom” is a smart, historical fiction that is part heist caper, part love story.

“I read a newspaper account of the last public hanging in the state, in 1897,” Taylor said. “It was a hell of an article. Without knowing why or to what end, I put Abe and Goldie on the gallows, and I just went, with little else beyond knowing what was in their past, which was, of course: cards, brothels, fights, shootings, and liquor.”

Taylor reviewed texts at the West Virginia Division of Culture and History and read through historical texts to accurately paint the picture of the time period. He also took inspiration from accounts of older citizens in McDowell.

“I’d long heard about a game of cards in Thurmond that continued uninterrupted for 14 years,” he said. “I had a hazy notion of such a thing in mind, and I’d also always been drawn to the way older folks spoke of Keystone, in McDowell County, particularly its infamous red light district known as Cinder Bottom. Cards, brothels, fights, shootings, and liquor—-everyone knew what it was like in the boom years in Keystone.”

Publishers Weekly called the novel “a sprawling, lively, serio-comic mountaineer novel set in his native West Virginia ? The backwoods humor is somewhat reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell, which includes flatulence jokes and over-the-top bedlam as Taylor closes out his rollicking yarn with poetic justice.”

Taylor’s specializations include fiction and 20th century American writing, particularly from Appalachia. He received his masters of fine arts from Texas State University and his masters degree from Ohio University.

-WVU-

dr/05/21/2015

CONTACT: Devon Copeland, Director of Marketing and Communication, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, West Virginia University, 304-293-6867, Devon.Copeland@mail.wvu.edu

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