Neely Books

Marvelously funny, bittersweet, and beautifully evocative, the original publication of A Short History of a Small Place announced the arrival of one of our great Southern voices. Although T. R. Pearson's Neely, North Carolina, doesn't appear on any map of the state, it has already earned a secure place on the literary landscape of the South. In this introduction to Neely, the young narrator, Louis Benfield, recounts the tragic last days of Miss Myra Angelique Pettigrew, a local spinster and former town belle who, after years of total seclusion, returns flamboyantly to public view-with her pet monkey, Mr. Britches. Here is a teeming human comedy inhabited by some of the most eccentric and endearing characters ever encountered in literature.

Tells the Bonnie and Clyde story of Raeford Benton Lynch and Jane Elizabeth Firesheets in the mythic town of Neely, North Carolina

The last volume in an unforgettable trilogy (with A Short History of a Small Place and Off for the Sweet Hereafter)

The author interweaves the story of widower Nestor Tudor's unrequited love for Mary Alice Celestine Lefler with parallel stories of a wide variety of other equally peculiar courtships

Twenty years ago, a first novel appeared and instantly announced the arrival of a master storyteller. T. R. Pearson's A Short History of a Small Place was hailed as "an absolute stunner" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post ) and its hero, young Louis Benfield, was dubbed "a youth not as wry as Holden Caulfield, but certainly as observant, and with a bigger, even sadder heart" (Fran Schumer, The New York Times ). Now, older but not necessarily wiser, Louis Benfield returns in Glad News of the Natural World. In order to get a sense of the larger world, he has moved to New York City from his hometown of Neely, North Carolina. Louis is a modern-day Candide, looking for love and experience in all the wrong places. However, when tragedy strikes, he finds the maturity to be more than man enough for the job. Whether catching up with Louis Benfield and the denizens of Neely or meeting them for the first time, readers will find Glad News of the Natural World hilarious and heartbreaking, warm and wise.