I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories

An underestimated writer. His economic style is ideal for the short story and his Souther US background make his tales distinctive and often chilling.

William Gay is totallyunique. His stories, often, dark, are always thought provoking. I have alway enjoyed every line of his work.

Brilliantly evocative.

William Gay has previously published two extremely good novels, and now offers readers a collection of short stories that are exceptional. "I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down", is a collection of 13 short stories that once again bring readers to the places made familiar in Gay's Tennessee. The "expert" review that is offered above for this book is accurate only in as far as it lists some of the titles of the work. Beyond listing these facts, the editorial simply spotlights the book was never read. The statement that Gay fails to connect his characters and their actions to the reader is absurd.There are some lighter moments in this collection especially in the book's opening tale. Generally these stories depict bad decisions by good people, or the latter being victimized by the evil conduct of others. And in most cases these are not a poor choice by essentially good individuals, the damage that is done is intentional, and flows from inherent flaws these characters are made of.As to the idea of connecting with his characters, in most cases I don't want to, in most cases nobody knows why certain damaged minds inflict on others the suffering they cause. Being left to wonder what absence of humanity causes a woman to thoughtfully strap her kids in car seats and then deliberately drown them in a lake is not an act that is understandable. Misconduct like the one I mentioned and others that assault us every day can be rationalized by a variety of experts, but they are never explained. These acts are so fundamentally aberrant to most people that "connecting" with these people, even if possible, is worthless. There is no explanation why people commit atrocities, endless books speculate, none provide answers.William Gay is a brilliant writer who has the gift of seeing and recording what most of the world only superficially views if they see it at all. These stories show a variety of dark shades of human action, lack of human compassion, and they do so brilliantly. If you are left feeling anger, uncomfortable and cold, he has done his job well.That this collection has basically been ignored, as judged by its sales rank, only confirms that mass produced, repetitive, mediocre and derivative writing is still the anesthesia of choice.

As good a collection of short stories as you are likely to read; probably better than anything you've just read - provided you weren't reading Flannery O'Connor.American Gothic at its very best. 'Crossroad Blues' is a particular highlight.