“A haunting and hypnotic memoir by one of our finest storytellers."
— Robert Atwan, Editor of The Best American Essays
About Lee
Lee Martin is the Pulitzer Prize Finalist author of The Bright Forever. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper’s, Ms., The Best American Essays, The Best American Mystery Stories, Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, among others. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. A native Midwesterner, he teaches in the MFA program at The Ohio State University.
About Gone the Hard Road
No matter how far I've come from the country kid I was, I can never forget the family we were: my kind mother, who loved books, my wounded father, whose intense love often got swallowed up inside his rage; and me, the only child, eager to escape my life and to immerse myself in someone else's story. Whenever we drove the hard road, I often found myself imagining all the places that lay beyond it, and wondering if, given the chance, I might someday see them, might move beyond those gravel roads, might leave behind me the dust and the fields, might finally know exactly where I belonged.
Also by Lee
Praise for Lee
“Martin has written a not-to-be-missed masterwork..."
—BOOKLIST Starred Review, on The Mutual UFO Network
“Lee Martin has long been one of my favorite writers of fiction and memoir, and now he's one of my favorite writers of advice about the writer's craft. Everyone who writes, or wants to, should read this wise and inspiring book."
—DAVID JAUSS, author of On Writing Fiction, on Telling Stories
“. . .Mr. Martin is a top-notch craftsman. . ."
—THE NEW YORK TIMES, on Break the Skin
“Written in the clearest prose, working back and forth over its complex story, and told in the dark, desperate, vivid voices of its various speakers, [The Bright Forever] holds you spellbound to the end, to its final, sad revelations."
—KENT HARUF, author of Eventide and Plainsong, on The Bright Forever
Latest Blog Post
For the second summer, Cathy and I are renting space in a community garden. We have a 4-foot by 12-foot raised bed. We’ve enjoyed our spring plantings of lettuce, spinach, and radishes, and now we’re watching the summer crops take hold: peppers, tomatoes, purple hull peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and okra. I’ve never grown…