George Singleton: 11 books

It’s Father’s Day 1972 and a young boy’s dad takes him to visit a string of unimpressive ex-girlfriends that could have been his mother; the unconventional detective work of a koan-speaking, Kung Fu–loving uncle solves a case of arson during a pancake breakfast; and a former geology professor,...

Set in the town of Gruel, South Carolina, this first novel by George Singleton, master of the comic short story, is the tale of a young man named Novel (his brother's name is James; his sister's is Joyce), a professional snake handler who stumbles across strange doings while he sits in a motel room...

George Singleton, who's had many stories published in the best literary journals, has recently burst into the big time with appearances in Playboy, Zoetrope, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine and Book. The stories in his new collection are wild and wooly - or maybe we should say wild and half-wooly....

My dog Tapeworm Johnson needed legitimate veterinary attention. It had been two years since she received annual shots. I read somewhere that an older dog can overdose on all these vaccinations, and I have found—I share this information with every dog owner I meet—that if you keep your pet away...

These fourteen funny stories tell the tale of a beleaguered boyhood down home where the dogs still run loose. As a boy growing up in the tiny backwater town of Forty-Five, South Carolina (where everybody is pretty much one beer short of a six-pack), all Mendal Dawes wants is out. It's not just...

"A bouncer videotapes an episode of Bonanza over his wife's sonogram and scrambles to find a replacement, an ex-poet takes a job driving a van that provides mammograms, and an office-supply salesman falls for a woman from an all-girl wrestling revue in a town called Kingdom Come in George Singleton's These People Are Us."--Publishers Weekly

Calloustown, the seventh collection from master raconteur George Singleton, who’s been praised by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as the “unchallenged king of the comic Southern short story,” finds the author at the absolute top of his game as he traces the unlikely inhabitants of the titular...

Take a darkly hilarious trip through a South Carolina town with the “unchallenged king of the comic Southern short story” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).   “Usually stories about small, quirky, southern towns are full of adorable, quirky characters that share their unusual philosophies...

A quirky tale of a hard-drinking artist by an author who “writes about the rural South without sentimentality . . . but with plenty of sharp-witted humor” (NPR Morning Edition).   Renegade artist Harp Spillman is lower than a bow-legged fire ant. Because of an unhealthy relationship with the...

A trip to the salvage yard reveals infidelity and theft. An unlicensed entomologist celebrates his freedom with a compulsive liar while a manhunt ensues on the streets outside the bar. Packed with heart, honesty and humor, Between Wrecks offers a glimpse into rural life from one of America's keenest observers.

New York Times best-selling writer Pat Conroy (1945–2016) inspired a worldwide legion of devoted fans numbering in the millions, but none are more loyal to him and more committed to sustaining his literary legacy than the many writers he nurtured over the course of his fifty-year writing life. In...