Praise for Hard Toward Home

A new voice from the Ozarks, C.D. Albin crafts a reverent, clear-eyed but heartfelt look at his people, the love, the violence, the myriad forces at work in lives that push the hidden up through the ground, to be seen and reckoned with in surprising ways.

—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone

Characters don't talk much in C.D. Albin's unforgettable Hard Toward Home. They have a lot they want to say, but the pressure of love and disappointment, old violence and unforgotten resentment brings them to the very edge of what language can say. And then they find the words, searingly. Written with haunting restraint and understanding, these gorgeous, perfect stories explore the things we want and the things we're capable of, both of which often surprise us.

—Erin McGraw, author of The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard

Hard Toward Home is hard to put down. The stories grab the reader by the shoulders and give him a good shake. C. D. Albin is a truly accomplished writer and these realistic tales are beautifully paced and composed of characters we’ve all met wherever we were raised. This is fine writing that makes us pay attention to every line, every detail, every character’s movement—all of it necessary. Not a wasted word in the whole book. Not a wasted second of a reader’s time.

—Tim Gautreaux, author of The Missing

Hard Toward Home is alive with cross-grained people caught between their pasts and futures and striving to outlast the harm they've done each other and themselves. Albin possesses all the storyteller's gifts of eye and ear and mind and goes them one better by virtue of his heart. These stories are deep and wise and quietly gorgeous.

—Janet Peery, author of The River Beyond the World

About the Author

C. D. Albin was born and reared in West Plains, Missouri. He earned a Doctor of Arts in English from the University of Mississippi and has taught for many years at Missouri State University – West Plains, where he founded and edits Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies. His stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in a number of periodicals, including Arkansas Review, Cape Rock, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Natural Bridge, and Slant.