Frank Bill

A debut collection set in southern Indiana features protagonists who test the boundaries of their sanity and survival skills, from a man who violently snaps and flees when his wife falls terminally ill to a former hunting dog breeder who clashes with a Salvadoran drug smuggler. Original. 40,000 first printing.

Stories

Crimes in Southern Indiana

A three-day boxing tournament in southern Indiana sees twenty fighters--including Jarhead, a desperate man who wants to feed his children, and the undefeated Chainsaw Agnus, a meth cook--battle each other until only one is left.

A Novel

Donnybrook

Frank Bill is back with a gritty, wrenching novel from deep inside the traumas of a broken American heartland. Miles is a Vietnam veteran who’s worried he’s going to lose his job—and with it his tenuous grasp on a stable life—over a fight with a coworker. His PTSD and struggles to control his steroid-fueled violent tendencies also complicate his relationship with his girlfriend, Shelby, a stripper who only occasionally displays the proverbial heart of gold. She’s certainly kinder and more generous than her brother, Wylie, who has been implicated in the deaths of two local Oxy dealers and is currently on the run. When Wylie kidnaps Shelby and holes up in Miles’s country lair, it all threatens to become a bit too much for Miles. As Frank Bill peels back the layers of Miles’s history, going deep into his memories of the Vietnam War, Back to the Dirt gets to the root of the traumas that have caused Miles and his community so much adversity. In this blistering novel, Bill reaches for the core values—living close to the land, working with your hands—that have been obscured by generations of neglect, drug abuse, and desperation. This is a profound and important story of an America that is only beginning to get its due attention—and Frank Bill is its most visceral, essential chronicler.

Back to the Dirt

A timeless—and timely—work: a gritty, wrenching novel from deep inside the traumas of the broken American male psyche Miles is a Vietnam vet who’s worried he’s going to lose his job and his tenuous grasp on a stable life because of a fight he had with a coworker over some steroids. His PTSD and struggles to control his steroid-fueled violent tendencies complicate his life with his girlfriend Shelby, a stripper who only occasionally seems to have the proverbial heart of gold. She certainly seems to possess more kindness and generosity than her brother, Wylie, who’s currently on the run after being implicated in the deaths of two local Oxy dealers and has their family on his tail. When Wylie kidnaps his sister and holes up in Miles's country lair, it is, frankly, threatening to become a bit too much for steroid-addled Miles to keep together. This is clearly Frank Bill territory. But in Back to the Dirt, he is going deeper and purer. As Bill peels back the layers of Miles’s history, accompanying him into his Vietnam War memories, the novel gets to the root of the traumas that have caused Miles—and his community—so much trouble. And this, truly, is the soul of the Frank Bill project: to speak of and for the forgotten struggles of the American heartland. He reaches deep for the core values—living close to the land, working with your hands—that have been obscured by generations of neglect, trauma, drug abuse, and desperation. This is a profound and important story that is only beginning to get its due attention—and Bill is its most visceral, essential chronicler.

Ian McEwan

Orhan Pamuk

Ferdinand von Schirach

Jean-Christophe Rufin

Sylvain Tesson

Jo Nesbo

Jonathan Coe

Camille Laurens

Maylis de Kerangal

Attica Locke

J. M. G. Le Clézio

Marc Dugain

Sophie Chauveau

Alix Deniger

Retrouvez dans ce dossier gratuit les premiers chapitres de 15 titres incontournables pour vos lectures d'été, dans les collections Blanche, Série Noire et Du monde entier : Donnybrook (de Franck Bill), Noces de charbon (de Sophie Chauveau), Expo 58 (de Jonathan Coe), I Cursini (d'Alix Deniger), L'emprise (de Marc Dugain), Réparer les vivants (de Maylis de Kerangal), Ni toi ni moi (de Camille Laurens), Tempête (de J.M.-G. Le Clézio), Dernière récolte (d'Attica Locke), Opération Sweet Tooth (de Ian McEwan), Police (de Jo Nesbo), Cevdet Bey et ses fils (d'Orhan Pamuk), Le collier rouge (de Jean-Christophe Rufin), L'affaire Collini (de Ferdinand von Schirach) et S'abandonner à vivre (de Sylvain Tesson). Vous pouvez accéder directement à chaque extrait par la table des matières de ce dossier ou lire les extraits à la suite. Retrouvez aussi photographie et biographie des auteurs. Tous ces livres numériques sont en vente chez votre libraire.

Extraits gratuits - Lectures d'été Gallimard 2014

Drew Moss

Juarez, Mexico. A young boxer, Salvador, refuses to take a fall, but has no problem taking a vicious drug gang's pay-off. When they take their lethal revenge on Salvador and his family, he returns as THE CROW, in search of vengeance... and forgiveness.

Pestilence

The Crow

In the raucous and action-packed follow-up to Donnybrook, mayhem is still the order of the day—only more so The dollar has failed; the grid is wiped out. Walmarts are looted and homes are abandoned as common folk flee and bloodthirsty militias fight for power. In a twenty-first century America gone haywire, Darwinian struggle for survival is the law of the land. Van Dorn, eighteen and running solo, was raised by his father in the old ways: to value survival, self-reliance, and righteousness. Determined to seek justice, he fights through a litany of horrors to save those captured by Cotto, a savage, drug-crazed warlord who has risen among the roving gangs, gaining territory while enslaving women and children. As destinies collide and survival becomes an increasingly distant fantasy, battling ideals of right and wrong come to an explosive head. Chock-full of the razor-sharp prose and bloodlust that made Donnybrook impossible to put down, The Savage nonetheless finds Frank Bill raising the stakes. Here, one of America’s most iconoclastic young storytellers presents an unnerving vision of a fractured America gone terribly wrong, and a study of what happens when the last systems of morality and society collapse.

The Savage

In the raucous and action-packed follow-up to Donnybrook, mayhem is still the order of the day-only more so Frank Bill's America has always been stark and violent. In his new novel, he takes things one step further: the dollar has failed; the grid is wiped out. Van Dorn is eighteen and running solo, dodging the bloodthirsty hordes and militias that have emerged since the country went haywire. His dead father's voice rings in his head as Van Dorn sets his sights not just on survival but also on an old-fashioned sense of justice. Meanwhile, a leader has risen among the gangs-and around him swirls the cast of brawlers from Donnybrook, with their own brutal sense of right and wrong, of loyalty and justice through strength. So, this is not the distant postapocalyptic future-this is tomorrow, in a world Bill has already introduced us to. Now he raises the stakes and turns his shotgun prose on our addiction to technology, the values and skills we've lost in the process, and what happens when the last systems of morality and society collapse. The Savage presents a bone-chilling vision of America where power is the only currency and nothing guarantees survival. And it presents Bill at his most ambitious, most eloquent, most powerful.

Frank Bill

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