Southern Cross the Dog audiobook

This book is by a friend of mine. This friend of mine, Bill Cheng, is "the shit." So is his book. I had the distinct privilege to be around while this was being written, got to hear it come out chapter by chapter every two to four weeks or so. When you are being held captive on a rowboat in the middle of a flood by Mr. Stuckey, you will not want to wait two weeks to find out how you escape. Bill Cheng takes the blues as his starting point and reconstructs a Mississippi of the imagination, one with mirrors hanging on trees, powdered testicles in hoodoo bags around preteen necks, and the eerie power of love and disaster animating everything. It is like a quantum superposition of Robert Johnson. You had better read it!

I was totally taken aback by this book. It was a debut novel and although the early reviews were good, I wasn't prepared for how good it was. It was very good. The thing that blew me away was how well Bill Cheng was able to capture the feel of the times and place the novel was set. Why, because the author was from the East coast and has never even been to Mississippi. This is a Southern classic and Cheng does an outstanding job of giving us colorful characters to care about as we begin our journey following the 1927 flood and leading up to the TVA's encroachment in the 1940's. I found this to be a very special book that I will treasure in my home library. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves southern literature. For fans of William Gay and Larry Brown who are looking for something to fill the void, this will suffice. In the acknowledgements it is clear the author has spent much time in following and showing admiration to the kings of southern Blues and perhaps that has shaped and given voice to this novel. Well done Bill Cheng.

Seems like there is a lot of hate for this book, which is odd for two reasons. Firstly, this was a beautifully written tale. Cheng vividly creates a sense of place, with a very lyrical style. Secondly, I don't understand why someone would expend so much energy on reading and reviewing a book they didn't enjoy. Some readers complained about the lack of story, when really this is a series of interlinked tales featuring a small cast of characters, rather than a straightforward single narrative. Cheng switches time and perspective but keeps some persistent themes throughout. I found this an absorbing and moving read, and look forward to more from the author.

If you are looking for a substantial read, I highly recommend two historical epic novels that may, at first glance, seem very dissimilar yet share many characteristics.In elegant, lucid prose, fiction newcomer Kent Wascom brings the frontier, in all its violence and disorder, to stunning life in The Blood of Heaven. Wascom follows Angel Woolsack, from his early life as the son of an itinerant preacher to the bordellos of Natchez and the barrooms of New Orleans to the bayous of Louisiana where Angel meets schemers and dreamers. Rich with detail and characterizations, The Blood of Heaven revisits an early America where fortunes and men were made and great risks were taken.Wascom is not yet 30, but he infuses his story with a wisdom, awareness, and clarity well beyond his years. As Angel and others carve out a rough-hewn existence in early nineteenth century America, we see them seizing their place and even plotting to overthrow a sovereign government. Through it all, Angel’s hold on us never wavers but intensifies. The Blood of Heaven proves Wascom is a trailblazer whose brilliance is not a one-off but a true and rooted fact.Chinese-American author Bill Cheng takes on the African-American existence in Mississippi in his epic odyssey Southern Cross the Dog. Cheng focuses his narrative lens on Robert Chatham, a black man in his 20s who believes he is cursed. He has good reason for his thinking.Cheng contrasts the tenderness of falling in love for the first time with rising flood waters that heralded the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the catastrophe that destroyed Robert’s home and changed his life forever.In Southern Cross the Dog, Robert’s journey takes him from a refugee camp to a brothel to a job clearing land in the name of progress. With an evocative setting, Southern Cross the Dog is a testament to a man’s will to live and to the distance he will go for friendship and love as he must carve a place and an existence free of bad luck and curses.Full of meaning, The Blood of Heaven and Southern Cross the Dog feature strong main characters who undergo odysseys and take us with them on their incredible journeys. These are magisterial and resonating stories steeped in astounding settings and peopled by the most intriguing and charismatic characters. Equally memorable and equally fascinating, these novels put their authors on the literary map.

This greatly enjoyable first novel spans much of the life of Robert Chatham who was 8 years old at the time of the great flood in the Mississippi delta in 1927. With such an impressive first novel I am left wondering what Cheng has been doing in his younger years. Dealing with issues of loss, coming of age, race, poverty and far more his writing leads to great anticipation for what will happen next. Its gothic atmosphere means it stands justifiable comparison to the great Southern novels, To kill a Mockingbird and The Color Purple to mention just two. Also it inevitably conjures up images of the aftermath of Katrina, and the wonderful film Beasts of the Southern Wild. Appealingly though, the language is that of the blues, and blues music features strongly throughout the book. The title "where the Southern cross the Dog" is from the middle of a train track where supposedly blues music began; where the Southern railroad crossed the Yellow Dog line. As an adult and in the latter part of the novel Chatham is "pursued" by the Dog. Correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I assume this is Death, and not a reference to the Yellow Dog. A fantastic first novel.

Best line- "Come sunset, the dogwoods blazed and the sun set moody below the western hills. Out toward Bruce, rows and rows of gabled roofs held the last of the greasy sunlight." Mr. Cheng takes a chance with each sentence, heck, with each word. Some are the moon, some point to the moon, and some are reflections of the moon broken in a pond. But his subjects-violence, geographic, meteorologic, and genetic; nature-the mother who kisses then eats her young; and the past's crippling chokehold many of us southerners embrace- pleads the brush over the pencil. So what if Mr. Cheng splashed beyond the lines sometimes or overused a color or two (I get real tired of reading dreams-seems a mite lazy). The blues isn't subtle; blues doesn't kick in until after the levee breaks, until the "what-iffers" have been swept away and the flood washes dirty and cold. So I like over-the-top. How else are you gonna write about floods?

Don’t worry about the chatter regarding how a New Yorker of Asian heritage could write a book about being Black in the South. He just did it, capturing the spirit and pathos of people--African American and Cajun--for whom survival against all odds, or random death at the end of a mob’s hanging rope, is the nature of life. Sure, there are times when Cheng’s poorly educated, rural African American characters suddenly speak as if they just came out of an intro to psychology course, but that does not get in the way of the story, nor does it disrupt the deep atmosphere of fatalism and foreboding that filled my mind and heart as I read the novel. When I finished this book, I felt as if I had participated in something--not just read a story.

This is a remarkable book, one that describes the lives and fates of its characters, in many ways tragic but at the same time inspiring, in a very personal way. It is astonishing that a Chinese-American living in Brooklyn has so brilliantly captured in his first novel life in the Mississippi delta of nearly 100 years ago, right down to its colourful language, a clear sign of his writing genius!

It was a beautiful story with captivating prose but I don't expect an Ai takeover any time soon. This book was recommended to me by amazon and Goodreads because I like Cormac McCarthy. While he's no Cormac he is published and I'm not, so who really cares what I think. Besides he is a gifted author and I would gladly read all of his catalogue which rarely happens so that says something. I do think my ex wife/fiancé might be right though and I'm way too suggestible to be checking out Ai suggestions.

"Southern Cross the Dog" by Bill Cheng is not a hopeful novel. It's a novel of struggle and drifting and chasing and running. It is, I guess, exactly what a story inspired by blues music should be.The story follows main character Robert Lee Chatham, who lives in Mississippi's delta with his father and mother, who has been troubled ever since the lynching of Robert's brother, Billy, for being involved with a white girl. Although we only get slight glimpses of Billy's death until later in the novel, it's clear the event is one that changed the family forever. We learn more later in a section that is narrated from the point of view of the boys' father, Ellis, which is the most heartbreaking portion of the book.The story begins as Great Flood rips through the region. The Chatham family is set adrift, literally and figuratively, by the flood, and Robert ends up going away and working under the wing of a brothel owner. It's there that Chatham crosses paths with Eli Cutter, an imprisoned man pulled out of jail by Augustus Duke, who wants to make money off of Cutter's reputation as an otherworldly blues musician.As the story moves forward we see the brothel, the Hotel Beau-Miel burns down, and later find Chatham working with a crew that is clearing the swamp to control the river. A series of events leads Chatham to falling in with a group of rogue Cajun trappers living in the swamp, where he is half captive, half guest. It is there that Robert begins to confront both his past and his future.That, really, is what "Southern Cross the Dog" is about - both running from and chasing your past, all at once.What I loved about the book was its rhythms and the language. Cheng's prose borders on poetic in many instances, but is always poignant and efficient. He has managed to capture a place and a world he's never experienced. The book definitely succeeds in pulling you into this old world of fear and devils and blues and heartache.One of the issues I have is I never feel like I'm totally a part of the characters. We get glimpses of what makes Robert tick, but there are times I feel I want to know him better. The same goes for the rest of the characters, which may be why Ellis Chatham's first-person section hits so hard - we're finally seeing, fully, what a character feels. The rest of the time we're left grasping at slippery - yet beautiful - glimpses of humanity splashed over more hollow portions.There's also occasionally some repetitive language. In some cases it helps pull you into the world, in other cases it's distracting. Some of the blame might be lain with the editing process.Another minor gripe (unless I'm just overlooking something) is near the end of the book when Robert and Frankie - one of the trappers - reunite. Frankie is following Chatham to try to track him down, but it still seems a little sudden and convenient when she does find him. It didn't feel like it happened 100 percent organically.I had high hopes for "Southern Cross the Dog," and I would generally say I was not disappointed. I loved the writing and the book was a pleasure to read. I finished it and immediately wanted to start over. In fact, I felt like I couldn't review it properly based on just one read. The story itself has a unique vibe, and although there are some small pieces that seem to be lacking, it's a worthy read. There are many individual moments that pack some heft, and in a way, they weigh heavier than the overall story. It may be in that way the the complete product falls just short, but it's a slight scar on a juicy slice of work. Much like the blues music it was inspired by, "Southern Cross the Dog" is not always perfect, but it is filled with feeling and effort.

I'm not sure which book some of the other reviewers read who are making comments such as, I didn't get it and no plot. Bill Cheng's first novel reads more like a masterpiece that should be assigned to college lit students. Southern Cross the Dog (which for some reason confused a lot of people)refers to Moorehead Mississippi, where the Southern railroad crosses the Yazoo line railroad line that the locals called the "Yellow Dog." It is the heart of the delta, the embodiment of the Blues. Cheng's prose is also the embodiment of the Blues, taking you inside the lives of the people who lived the lives that are the stuff of great tragedies but were seldom chronicled. Let's get this Asian American from Brooklyn writing about Black and Cajun lives during the 20's stuff out of the way. No one who writes in settings other than their own has lived the experience. It is the thing that makes this book remarkable in that the author disappears and the characters and their lives are so believable that they become real egos in your mind. Read this book if you love Southern fiction, the Blues, reading, great writing and the incredible promise of a new writer.

What an amazing writer Bill Cheng is -- I love the way he has created a new story that is vibrant, alive, and profoundly real, yet is grounded in the strong legacy of Southern American literature.Cheng writes like a mad genius, possessed by the spirit of the Delta Blues.In his tale of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, Cheng not only mirrors the style and voice of classic Southern writers like Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, he creates his own certain and precise vernacular. A marvelous writer -- a great story -- and I am definitely looking forward to his next book.(Just a side note -- I love that Cheng is also proving that you don't have to BE a particular race, color, origin or gender to write in a believable style and voice. My second novel -- Sinful Folk -- is the personal story of a medieval woman, while I'm a 21st century man... so Cheng gives me hope I can pull this off ;-)