William Humphrey

Finalist for the National Book Award: The mesmerizing saga of a Texas family torn apart by passion and pride Twelve years after Hannah Hunnicutt was committed to a Dallas asylum, her body is brought home to northeast Texas to be buried alongside those of her husband and son. Etched on all three gravestones is the same date of death: May 28, 1939.   Home from the Hill is the story of that tragic day and the dramatic events leading up to it. The biggest...

William Humphrey's delightful chronicle of an angling holiday in Wales celebrates two equally astonishing creatures: the Atlantic salmon and the British fly fisherman  In order to mate in the same freshwater stream where it was spawned, the salmon swims one thousand miles or more and overcomes countless obstacles, from trawling nets to twelve-foot-high waterfalls. To catch the King of Fish at the end of its incredible journey, the Anglo-Saxon angler...

On the annual graveyard-working day in Clarksville, Texas, families come from all over East Texas to pay respects to their loved ones. The Ordways are one such clan, and in this eloquent and original novel, our narrator recounts the story of how he and his kin arrived in this magical land where the South meets the West.   The tale begins with his great-grandfather, Thomas Ordway, who lost his sight at the Battle of Shiloh and vowed to quit Tennessee...

The essential anthology of early short fiction by an American master Set primarily in Texas and Oklahoma during the Great Depression, these extraordinary stories display the unique blend of irony, nostalgia, and sharp-edged lyricism that established William Humphrey as one of America's finest chroniclers of small-town life.   In "The Last Husband," a bright-eyed newlywed bears witness to the cynical intrigues of an older married couple. "The Human...

From one of America's most acclaimed authors comes a masterful collection of bittersweet tales about the autumn of life In the exquisite title story, seventy-six-year-old Virginia Tyler will finally marry the love of her life-as soon as she finds the courage to leave her husband of almost fifty years. In "The Apple of Discord," a Hudson Valley farmer, heartsick that none of his three daughters or their husbands wants to keep the family orchard,...