Debut novelist Wayne Caldwell’s Cataloochee-a rich, vivid, arresting work beginning at the dawn of Reconstruction-sprawls across the succeeding generations like the vast green mountains of its rural North Carolina setting. Best-selling author Charles Frazier calls it “a brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America.” This enthralling saga evokes the full color spectrum of mountain life, from lights to darks and every shade in between.

Wayne Caldwell won extensive critical praise for his debut novel Cataloochee. Set in the same Appalachian locale, Requiem by Fire strikes chords of humor, strife and human endurance with a 1920s tale populated by vivid Southern characters. When the federal government attempts to force residents of a farming community to sell their land, lives are torn asunder by the prospect of change. “Wayne Caldwell has restored to us a lost America-and made us fall in love with its people all over again.”-Jon Clinch, author of Finn