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 writing his autobiography. As he struggles to recount his life story, he uncovers-and finds himself starring in-a decades-old town secret, one that can blow him and his fellow citizens sky-high. Funny as only George Singleton can be, full of Southern mischief and wit, Novel is a crazed and crazy fictional whirlwind of drinking, motel-living, art-forgery-committing, pool-playing redneck charm.

Novel

Literature & Fiction

Singleton, George

Humor & Satire

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Work Shirts for Madmen: A Novel

Renegade artist Harp Spillman is lower than a bow-legged fire ant. Because of an unhealthy relationship with the bottle, he’s ruined his reputation as one of the South’s preeminent commissioned metal sculptors. And his desperate turn to ice sculpting might’ve led to a posse of angry politicians on his trail. With the help of his sane and practical potter wife, Raylou, Harp understands that it’s time to return to the mig welder. Yes, it’s time to prove that he can complete a series of twelve-foot-high metal angels—welded completely out of hex nuts—for the city of Birmingham. Is it pure chance that the Elbow Boys, their arms voluntarily fused so they can’t drink, show up in order to help Harp out in a variety of ways? And why did his neighbor smuggle anteaters into desolate Ember Glow? Is it true that there’s no free will?

Work Shirts for Madmen

United States

Once you start reading George Singleton's eagerly awaited first book of stories, a strange thing happens: You discover that the characters sound like people you know--people who are trying hard to make sense of modern absurdities. With a style all his own, Singleton fashions a world that wins our hearts but teases our senses: how to find a black-market sonogram so your pregnant wife won't find out you accidentally taped over the original; how to help your father and everyone else in town fake being hit by a tornado to get emergency government funds; and why not to look for your next wife at your local recycling center. Step into Singleton's world and you'll see why he is earning a reputation as one of the funniest, wisest, and most surprising Southern writers of his generation--and why he was named one of the "new writers you need to know" by Book Magazine.

These People Are Us: Stories

Harper Paperbacks

The Half-Mammals of Dixie

This second collection of short stories by a bright star in Southern fiction showcases a town so tiny it missed the map, the gleefully off-the-wall Southerners who refuse to be pigeonholed, and a South far removed from big-city Atlanta and proper Charleston. As the author says of his characters, "They're regular people just trying to get by." Among them: a boy whose reputation is ruined when he appears in a head-lice documentary; a lovelorn father who woos his third-grader's teacher with creative show-and-tells; and a former pharmaceuticals salesman who waits for the word of God to tell him what to paint on next the "primitive" canvases he sells for big bucks to an art dealer.

Harvest

Acclaimed short-story master George Singleton follows the lives and schemes of the citizens of fictitious Gruel, South Carolina, in search of glory, seclusion, money, revenge, and a meaningful existence. In these nineteen tales, young Gruelites learn lessons when confronted with neighbors who might not be as blind as they appear, dermatologists intent on eradicating birthmarks, and fathers prone to driving on half-inflated tires in order to flirt with cashiers. Meanwhile, the town's older citizens try to make sense out of dogs that heal wounds, lawn-mowing dead men, wives who don't appreciate gas masks for Valentine's Day, and children who mix their mother's ashes with housepaint. Hilarious and tragic, George Singleton's unforgettable characters try to overcome their limitations as best they can.

Drowning In Gruel

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

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 writing his autobiography. As he struggles to recount his life story, he uncovers-and finds himself starring in-a decades-old town secret, one that can blow him and his fellow citizens sky-high. Funny as only George Singleton can be, full of Southern mischief and wit, Novel is a crazed and crazy fictional whirlwind of drinking, motel-living, art-forgery-committing, pool-playing redneck charm.

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

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, recovering from addiction, finds himself sharing a taxicab with specters from a Jim Crow–era lynching. Set in and around the fictional town of Steepleburg, South Carolina, the loosely tied stories in George Singleton’s Staff Picks place sympathetic, oddball characters in absurd, borderline surreal situations that slowly reveal the angst of southern history with humor and bite. 
 In the tradition of Donald Barthelme, T. C. Boyle, Flannery O’Connor, and Raymond Carver, Singleton creates lingering, darkly comedic tales by drawing from those places where familiarity and alienation coexist. A remarkable and distinct effort from an acclaimed chronicler of the South, Staff Picks reaffirms Singleton’s gift for crafting short story collections that both deliver individual gems and shine as a whole.

Staff Picks: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

LSU Press

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. In any case, they're definitely not for the creationist crowd or for the laughter impaired. For example:
 - A self-described "primitive artist," getting rich off religious canvases, is mistaken for a faith healer.
 - A lovelorn dad woos his third grader's teacher with very special show-and-tells, including long lost love letters to Shakespeare from Anne Hathaway, to Fred Astaire from Ginger Rogers, and to Henry VIII from all of his wives.
 - A boy's reputation is ruined forever when he accepts the starring role in a documentary on diagnosing head lice.
 Off-the-wall. But also utterly believable and written with tremendous affection for the people and their place-a place called Forty-Five, part of the contemporary South that's far removed from big city Atlanta or proper Charleston and, in fact, much like Singleton's own hometown of Dacusville, South Carolina. As he says of his characters, "They're regular people just trying to get by. Most of them aren't jaded by everyday life, though perhaps they should have been long ago. There are some with physical and mental limitations, but I hope all of them have heart."
 They do indeed, just like their stories.

Contemporary

A Shannon Ravenel Book

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 his hometown that's hopeless. Mendal's father is just as bad. Embarrassing his son to death nearly every day, Mr. Dawes is a parenting guide's bad example. He buries stuff in the backyard—fake toxic barrels, imitation Burma Shave signs (BIRD ON A WIRE, BIRD ON A PERCH, FLY TOWARD HEAVEN, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH), yardstick collections. He calls Mendal "Fuzznuts" and makes him recite Marx and Durkheim daily and befriend a classmate rumored to have head lice. Mendal Dawes is a boy itching to get out of town, to take the high road and leave the South and his dingbat dad far behind—just like those car-chasing dogs. But bottom line, this funky, sometimes outrageous, and always very human tale is really about how Mendal discovers that neither he nor the dogs actually want to catch a ride, that the hand that has fed them has a lot more to offer. On the way to watching that light dawn, we also get to watch the Dawes's precarious relationship with a place whose "gene pool [is] so shallow that it wouldn't take a Dr. Scholl's insert to keep one's soles dry." To be consistently funny is a great gift. To be funny and cynical and empathetic all at the same time is George Singleton's special gift, put brilliantly into play in this new collection.

Why Dogs Chase Cars: Tales of a Beleaguered Boyhood

Toddlers—and drunks—bang around hitting walls, tables, chairs, the floor, and other people, trying to find their legs. Writing fiction is a similar process. Sometimes it might take a while before the story gets some balance and moves forward. Sometimes the story takes off as if motor-driven, then crashes into something not foreseen or expected. Learning to be a writer is all about finding your legs, and doing your best to convince onlookers that you know what you're doing and where you're going.
In Pep Talks, Warnings &amp; Screeds, acclaimed Southern story writer and novelist George Singleton serves up everything you ever need to know to become a real writer (meaning one who actually writes), in bite-sized aphorisms. It's Nietzsche's Beyond Good &amp; Evil meets Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. It's cough syrup that tastes like chocolate cake. In other words, don't expect to get better unless you get a good dose of it, maybe two.
Accompanied by more than fifty original full-color illustrations by novelist Daniel Wallace, these laugh-out-loud funny, candid, and surprisingly useful lessons will help you find your own writerly balance so you can continue to move forward.

Pep Talks, Warnings, And Screeds: Indispensable Wisdom And Cautionary Advice For Writers

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

Writer's Digest Books

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Books by Singleton, George

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Singleton, George. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Novel

Work Shirts for Madmen

These People Are Us: Stories

The Half-Mammals of Dixie

Drowning In Gruel

Novel

Staff Picks: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

The Half-Mammals of Dixie

Why Dogs Chase Cars: Tales of a Beleaguered Boyhood

Pep Talks, Warnings, And Screeds: Indispensable Wisdom And Cautionary Advice For Writers