Against the Country: A Novel

Against the Country: A Novel

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VULTURE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR â€¢Â Against the Country is a gift for fans of Southern Gothic and metafiction alike. Set in the Virginia pines, and overrun with failed parents, racist sex offenders, cast-off priests, and suicidal chickens, this novel challenges literary convention even as it attacks our national mythâ€”that the rural naturally engenders good, while the urban breeds an inevitable sin.

In a voice both perfectly American and utterly new, Ben Metcalf introduces the reader to Goochland County, Virginiaâ€”a land of stubborn soil, voracious insects, lackluster farms, and horrifying treesâ€”and details one familyâ€™s pitiful struggle to survive there. Eventually it becomes clear that Goochland is not merely the authorâ€™s setting; it is a growing, throbbing menace that warps and scars every one of his charactersâ€™ lives.

Equal parts fiery criticism and icy farce, Against the Country is the most hilarious sermon one is likely to hear on the subject of our native soil, and the starkest celebration of the language our land produced. The result is a literary tour de force that raises the question: Was there ever a narrator, in all our literature, so precise, so far-reaching, so eloquently misanthropic, as the one encountered here?

Praise for Against the Country

â€œIconoclastic . . . Against the Country has obvious affinities to Southern Gothic, both in its voice and in the delight it takes in rural ignorance and grotesqueries. . . . [A] country cousin of David Foster Wallace.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review

â€œExceptional in its verbal brilliance and conscientiousness, Against the Country involves us in a familyâ€™s anguished and hilarious struggle against the strange dooms that seem peculiar to white rural America. This is a savage and gladdening novel.â€â€”Joseph Oâ€™Neill, author of Netherland and The Dog

â€œMetcalfâ€™s unnamed narrator dazzles with his Puritan deadpan and capacious intellect, not to mention his double-barreled blasts of dark humor and wicked satire. . . . There are so many brilliant turns of phrase in Against the Country that itâ€™s hard to choose favorites, but Metcalf is at his sharpest and most seductive when his antihero does more than blast and blame, when he steps outside his sermons to say something real. . . . Every note in every solo is sounded with exquisite perfection.â€â€”Slate

â€œFaulknerian . . . eccentric, magnificent Southern Gothic metafiction.â€â€”Vanity Fair

â€œBen Metcalf is a brilliant writer, andÂ Against the CountryÂ is an ingenious and hilarious novel, a glittering, bitter celebration of how the lousiness of life can be redeemed in the hands (and mouth) of a top-shelf teller of lifeâ€™s stories.â€â€”Sam Lipsyte, author ofÂ The AskÂ andÂ The Fun Parts

â€œA daring conglomeration of every trick, swindle and gimmick possible using only ink and paper, a pulpwood imagination machine so finely and expertly wrought that it can take on Jefferson, Thoreau, the church, patriotism, race relations, sexual identity, J. D. Salinger, the myth of America and a thousand other targets . . . [Against the Country] is absolutely and completely worth all investment of time and effort, because it is an undeniably beautiful object, sharp as a new razor.â€â€”NPR

â€œOne of the more necessaryâ€”and most eloquentâ€”expressions of a distinctly American, provincial rage in some years.â€â€”Flavorwire

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-01-06
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-01-06
Format	Kindle eBook

Against the Country: A Novel

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