The Same Terrible Storm

THE SAME TERRIBLE STORM introduces us to a fierce and lyrical writer who, in his depiction of contemporary Appalachian life, is equal parts uncompromising and compassionate, and able to eerily channel a wide spectrum of distinctive voices—coal miners, musicians, pill poppers, snake handlers, writers, marijuana farmers, brutal men and complicated women, knowing children and dangerous elders—all of them filled with yearning, all of them inextricably bound to their time and place. An extraordinary debut collection.

“Sheldon Lee Compton is the definition of what Faulkner meant when he described the closeness between the short story writer and the poet, saying, “the short story…is the most demanding form after poetry.” A story like “The Son of a Man” in The Same Terrible Storm isn’t so much a story as it is prose poetry. Compton doesn’t write paragraphs, but rather indented stanzas.”

– David Joy, author of Where All Light Tends to Go

“This is a brilliant book by Sheldon Lee Compton, one of our finest short story writers in the independent publishing world.”

– Robert Vaughan, author of Microtones and Rift