Hungry and the Lost

New fiction from Bethany W. Pope - an LBA-winning author,and a finalist for the Faulkner-Wisdom AwardsThey were named by the Huffington Post as 'one of the fiveExpat poets to watch in 2016'.Nicholas Lezard, writing for The Guardian, described theirlatest poetry collection, Silage, as 'literature as salvation'.Edwardian Florida. The swamplands of Tampa provide atough but good living for those men hardy enough to brave theweather and the wildness. There are ripe pickings to be hadin bird hunting; egret feathers plucked by the sack-full andsent away to adorn rich city-women's hats. Wives for theserough hunters are ordered from catalogues, attractivenessgraded by cooking skills and hip-width.When illness sweeps the area and the local minister dies,his widow, his beloved Rose, succumbs to madness. Hisdaughter Joy must struggle to keep them both alive in whathas become a skeleton town, rotting into the swamp andabandoned by all but the most ruthless.Rich with visceral imagery, The Hungry and the Lost is anovel in true Southern Gothic style, pitting the worlds ofmyth and innocence against the rational grip of progress andmodernity.