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Little Sister Death is the stunning ‘lost’ horror novel of the late William Gay. Inspired by the famous 19th Century Bell Witch haunting of Tennessee, it follows the unravelling life of David Binder, a writer who moves his young family to a haunted farmstead to try and find inspiration for his faltering work…
Beautifully written and structured, Little Sister Death is a loving and faithful addition to the field of classic horror writing, eschewing any notions of irony or post-modern tricks as it aims, instead, straight for your soul.
Gay's terrifying ghost story is a new take on an old tale as the protagonist finds his family falling apart in a haunted farmstead.
What comes to mind when reading this novel - chilling, beautiful, quietly shocking - is The Shining (1977). Both books are about a family's haunting that will lead to the eventual unraveling of the central protector-patriarch.
'The way he injects creeping dread into the narrative is deft and skilled, with sinister sightings and sounds in the walls gradually accumulating ... the final restrained passages are chilling in the extreme, making it a highly accomplished and admirable read.'
'Gay poetically shades together past and present in a novel that eschews outright sensationalism for something much more clever and creepy.'
Inspired by Tennessee's Bell Witch hauntings, this jumps back and forth in time from 1785 to 1982 in a kind of Cormac McCarthy - meets - Stephen King-meets-Blair Witch - sleep destroying way.
'A beautifully written, deeply unsettling haunted house story that lingers with the power of a half-remembered nightmare.'
William Gay was born in Hohenwald, Tennessee. After high school, he joined the United States Navy and served during the Vietnam War. For many years he made his living as a carpenter, drywall-hanger and house painter before publishing, in 1998, his first novel, The Long Home, at the age of 57. He went on to publish the story collection I…
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