Michael Farris Smith with DESPERATION ROAD

Thursday, February 9, 2017 – 6:00pm

Russell Gaines returns home from a prison term only to confront two brothers with revenge on their minds. And when he meets a homeless woman and her child, his troubles are compounded. Michael Farris Smith sets his characters on a path that was begun by Faulkner and continued by Larry Brown but it is one not confined to the Deep South but part of the undercurrent of American society. While it may be a road of desperation it can also be, sometimes, one of redemption. In Smith’s case, it is all that and more in a powerful, unforgettable work. – BC

About the Author
Michael Farris Smith is the award-winning author of Rivers and The Hands of
Strangers. Rivers was named in numerous Best Books of the Year lists, and garnered the 2014 Mississippi Author Award for Fiction. His short fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his essays have appeared with The New York Times, Catfish Alley, Writer’s Bone, and more. He lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with his wife and two daughters.