A Hanging at Cinder Bottom. Glenn Taylor
tion id="u5bcda723-1a1e-59ad-861a-74f6cdbae45f">
The Borough Press,
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Glenn Taylor 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016.
Cover design © Mecob Design Ltd
Cover photographs © Matthias Clamer / Getty Images; CGTextures (wood planks).
Glenn Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008104825
Source ISBN: 9780008104801
Version 2016-04-22
This one is for the people of McDowell County, West Virginia, past, present, and future
Cook ovens glare red-eyed upon the darkness
And belch their cinders at the fevered days.
—LOUISE MCNEILL
A man with a guitar laid flat on his lap
And a pocketknife for a slide
Called a song about old Keystone
Where the strumpets and knaves reside
Come all ye fornicators he sang
Come on Death’s Black Train
Ain’t no difference ’tween here and hell
’Cept a creek running ’side the lane
He told the tale of the Kid and the Queen
And he told what came before
The years he gave were wide apart
A season apiece made four
1877’s Fall and Winter ’97
1903 in Spring and Summer 1910
The hell he conjured was so glorious
I found salvation in every sin.
—JENKINJONES CHESTER
Table of Contents
The Crows Were in the Evergreens
April Fools’ Has Come and Gone
Cyanogen Gas Will Impregnate the Atmosphere
Hide the Whiskey and Bend the Knee