"No, not vampires; the late William Gay unfortunately didn't anticipate the world takeover of Bella and Edward when he named his backwoods Tennessee gothic novel, but it is no less a stunning web of Cormac McCarthy-esque necrophilia, murder, spot-on rural dialogue, and haunting renditions of nature. He is my new favorite writer."

"In 1993, a good friend of mine who had recently moved to Livingston, Montana introduced me to Jim Harrison. He had flown to Wisconsin to join me for a weekend of waterfowl hunting and brought with him Harrison’s The Woman Lit by Fireflies, which he was convinced I’d like. I read the book the following week and felt it had cast a spell on me. I called my friend and thanked him profusely for introducing me to Harrison. Then I read everything else Harrison had written, including his poetry (Harrison considered himself, first and foremost a poet), which I found as evocative as his novellas and novels. I especially admired Harrison’s attention to the details of a landscape. Harrison, in turn, led me to a group of Western writers—Thomas McGuane, William Kittredge, Ivan Doig, and Cormac McCarthy, to name only a few—who would have a profound effect on my writing."