The Gone Dead (Relié)

"The greatest novels in my world are nearly all placed in Mississippi. The Gone Dead is one of the greatest novels ever placed in Mississippi. The southern novel will never be the same after this book. Billie James, the protagonist of The Gone Dead, holds more mystery, lyricism, tragedy, and nuance than most characters I've read in recent years. It seems almost unfair to contemporary writers that Chanelle Benz has created a plot that is equally fresh as Billie James herself.
Somehow the narrator and narrative tug at Mississippi's past and future with equal force. Writers were not supposed to be able to do what Benz does in The Gone Dead. Somehow she did it, and she made it all seem so easy." Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy. "I love this novel for many reasons : its fresh look at the hardscrabble Mississippi Delta ; its varied voices that form a chorus around its main voice, Billie ; and the mystery at its heart.
The Gone Dead doesn't feel like a first novel. It feels as old and rich as the Delta soil on which it happens, and I love it. Did I say that ? " Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. "Wise and assured, Chanelle Benz's The Gone Dead plunges the reader into a fraught and complicated homecoming of sorts, the South you return to after a life away, a place you never really knew, a place where you may or may not belong, full of secrets about yourself, your family, a place where old threats that should be long gone are real and immediate and dangerous.
Benz's prose is insightful and surprising, chock-full of beautiful sentences that demand re-reading." James A. McLaughlin, author of Bearskin. "Chanelle Benz's prose is remarkable for its acute intelligence, flawless precision, and startling beauty. This wry, soulful novel reads like a thriller but an intimate one ; it becomes both a genuine page-turner and a deep character study." Dana Spiotta, author of Innocents and Others.
"Chanelle Benz has the power and grace to make the quiet stunning and the explosive beautiful. The Gone Dead is a wondrous exploration of pain and a confrontation of its sources. The novel is one of discovery and in the journey of it you feel as though you've earned truths to be felt long after you've put the book down." Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black.