- Paperback: 498 pages
- Publisher: Touchstone; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed edition (1 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743205383
- ISBN-13: 978-0743205382
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,779,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Fay
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Bill Nichols "USA Today" Brown will show you another America -- his America -- and dare you to try to forget it exists.
Product Description
She's had no education, and you can't call what her father's been trying to give her "love." So at seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home, carrying a purse with half a pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. She's headed for the bright lights and big times of Biloxi, and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help's not hard to come by when you look like Fay.
There's a highway patrolman who gives her a lift, with a detour to his own place. There are truck drivers who pick her up, no questions asked. There's a crop duster with money for a night or two on the town. There's a strip-joint bouncer who deals on the side. And in the end, there are five dead bodies stacked in Fay's wake.
"Fay" is a novel that could only have been written by Larry Brown, whom the "Boston Globe" called "one of our finest writers -- honest, courageous, unflinching."
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First Sentence
SHE CAME DOWN out of the hills that were growing black with night, and in the dusty road her feet found small broken stones that made her wince. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
SHE CAME DOWN out of the hills that were growing black with night, and in the dusty road her feet found small broken stones that made her wince. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a good story, but I recoil from agreeing that it is a "masterpiece". I like descriptive books, but I got constantly irritated by the author's style of describing every tiny irrelevant action of every character. If you're not annoyed by passages like this on every page:
"He helped her down the steps and opened the hatch and put her suitcase in and slammed it shut and then opened the door on the pickup for her and went around to the other side and slid in and cranked it up."
... then you're a far more placid reader than I am. I also found the prose a bit illiterate - for example, constructions like "might could have" come up every so often.
Other than that, the story IS good, and you really do want to know what happens. Fay isn't a particularly rounded character, but the plot she's submerged in carries that through.
Be prepared to either read with patience or skip the huge chunks of pointless description.
"He helped her down the steps and opened the hatch and put her suitcase in and slammed it shut and then opened the door on the pickup for her and went around to the other side and slid in and cranked it up."
... then you're a far more placid reader than I am. I also found the prose a bit illiterate - for example, constructions like "might could have" come up every so often.
Other than that, the story IS good, and you really do want to know what happens. Fay isn't a particularly rounded character, but the plot she's submerged in carries that through.
Be prepared to either read with patience or skip the huge chunks of pointless description.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
71 reviews
54 of 60 people found the following review helpful
Larry Brown's Big Bad Masterpiece
8 Mar 2000
Format:Hardcover
Larry Brown's FAY is absolutely incredible. This is the "big book" his fans have been waiting for. Picking up on the character of Fay Jones as she exited his novel JOE, Brown has created something most unexpected--a living, breathing female main character that pulses with the same intensity his male characters always have. You don't have be familiar with JOE to dive into FAY (but I'd recommend JOE as a fabulous read as well), as Fay's story stands on its own quite well. All the elements of Brown's other books are here: the drinking, the killing, the aimless riding around in Mississippi's lovely countryside--but his handling of Fay's character is especially tender this time around and what happens to her will hurt you in ways you won't expect. Yes, it's long. And yes, it's a bit slower paced than Brown's other novels. But it's a doozy of a book that should earn the author his first National Book Award nomination. Buy it now!
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
'Fay' transcends Southern-fried stereotypes
5 April 2000
Format:Hardcover
One word best describes Larry Brown's writing: brutal. The north Mississippi writer's latest work of fiction, "Fay," is filled with characters, events and pain which amplify the everyday brutality of many lower-class whites in Mississippi. Of course in writing about these increasingly marginalized women and men, Brown also says much about all of us: who we are, who we love, who we hate and what it means to live and to die as Southerners. Along the way, Larry Brown also tells one fine story.
"Fay" is one of those novels that you should read on a deck or a dock, maybe in the sand at the beach, with a six-pack of cold, cheap beer next to you. Read a few pages, take a sip. Think about what it is you've read.
After 489 pages, you'll shake your head in disbelief at Fay Jones and the lives she brightens, enlightens and ends. "That can't be. Who are these people? What are they thinking? This isn't real." But it is. And that's the beauty - and gift - of Larry Brown: He tells the truth from the darkest of our hearts.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
An Outstanding Pageturner
23 May 2000
Format:Hardcover
This is a compelling story about a young innocent finding her way through Mississippi circa 1985, before the casinos took over the Gulf Coast. With Fay, Brown has created an engaging heroine who is thoroughly believable. Her journey from backwoods shacks to strip joints, from paternal abuse to true love, pregnancy and tragic loss is moving, often hilarious and unforgettable. Male authors rarely create believable female characters, which is not the case with Fay. The supporting characters are deftly drawn and include a kindly couple (a highway patrolman and his alcoholic wife) who offer Fay shelter, a sexy but dangerous strip club bouncer who falls hard for Fay and his slimy, womanizing half-brother. Despite her tender age (17) and fifth grade education, Fay has an amazing instinct for survival which helps her escape several perilous situations. This book was so incredible that I gobbled it down in two days. "Fay" is a thrilling page-turner that is also a beautifully written, poignant tale. It was my first introduction to Larry Brown and I'm so grateful that I found it. I strongly recommend this book to readers who appreciate fine writing as well as those seeking a great original story. If readers like this book, they should also check out two other fine books by Brown: "Big Bad Love," a tremendous collection of short stories, and "Father and Son," another novel.
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