“I’ve envied Bill Eakin’s work now for the better part of twenty years. And if this is your first foray into Redgunk, Mississippi, then I also envy you for the discovery you’re about to make. To those merely eyeing the exit ramp, though, not-wrongly wary of potential dangers, imagine a lyrical Ray Bradbury sharing bong hits with a salty Stephen King as they write a delightfully bizarre Twilight Zone script that somehow ends up on Hee Haw. There’s poetry in them there Redgunk swamps, and splendor in the inadvertent genius and private profanities of the people who live in and around them. There’s magic to be unearthed, terror to be suffered, passion and irreverence to be savored, and silliness abound. But there’s also familiarity, albeit beautifully skewed through Bill’s wonderfully warped lens. Even if you’ve never tried cornbread, even if you’ve never ventured below the Mason-Dixon, chances are the residents of Redgunk will remind you (perhaps a little too much) of someone you already know. That’s because for all their secrets, charms, otherworldly exploits and colossal flaws, the folks there are us—lyrical, salty, and delightfully bizarre. So climb up onto the porch and make yourself at home awhile. People in these parts are only too happy to share a story, and I promise you’ll be glad you came.”

— Aaron Christopher Drown, October, 2021

“William R. Eakin’s stories soar and scatter like crows before buckshot. You never know which direction they’ll go, but to read them is to be taken to a place where the journey truly does matter more than the destination. There is a whiff of the old masters here: Bradbury, Faulkner, O’Connor, and something more, something that is all Eakin. It’s his voice, sure, a voice that rings out with the fury and truth of thunder over a dark cornfield. It’s also the mood, the wisdom, the humor, and yes, the bits of intangible magic that push these stories beyond the restraints of literature and into the realm of myth. Redgunk—and these stories— will stay with me forever.”

— Hank Early

“Eakin expertly weaves 38 stories set in the fictional town of Redgunk, Miss., written over the past 30 years, into a bizarre and captivating whole. The opening piece, “Lawnmower Moe,” about a man haunted by his ancestors and their powers, quickly sets the tone for the collection, which sees other residents encountering mermaids (“Bob and the Mermaid”) and abducted by aliens (“Encounter in Redgunk”). Some of the stories are darker, such as “The Lizard Queen,” in which Mary Contrary discovers the lengths she is willing to go for control after moving to Redgunk with her drug-addict husband. Others are oddly touching: “Still Man” finds Amy Turner torn between her job as a social worker and the chance to be truly free. Through it all comes the sense of Redgunk as a living, breathing town, and though there’s no ending to its story, the final piece, “Harriet,” about a young girl who disappeared years ago, leaves the reader with a feeling of closure.…there’s no denying the appeal of his [Eakin’s] fascinating, dreamlike world. This will please readers of science fiction and fantasy alike.”

— Publisher’s Weekly, 2021

“Welcome to Redgunk, Mississippi, where the kudzu creeps, the aliens abduct, and curious visitors can see a real-life mummy behind the Corner Liquor Store and Gas for just 50 cents. It’s a place of mermaids, dragons, and 100-foot-tall giants. It’s also home to individuals with drug addictions, social workers, and good ol’ boys—just like any town in Mississippi. Redgunk provides the setting for these 38 stories, which represent three decades of Eakin’s distinctive brand of larger-than-life yarn spinning. In “Lawnmower Moe,” a man who kicks the bucket while trimming his grass returns from the grave to haunt his wife and children. In “Homesickness,” an abductee and his identical replicant are both set loose in town, their incurable pining for home rendering them useless as alien test subjects. In the H.P. Lovecraft–ian “Shadow Out of Redgunk,” a mad scientist explains his part in the origin of an 8-foot monster who stalks the local kudzu. In “Unicorn Stew,” the quest for the eponymous creature leads to one of the area’s grisliest murders. Combining previously published, uncollected, and never published tales, the author presents for the first time the complete literature of a town in which nothing ever stays dead—and most things don’t stay completely alive either. Eakin’s prose is equal parts Lovecraft and Harry Crews, reveling in mashups of the occult with good, old-fashioned, small-town scandals: “His Mama was that beautiful mad woman reported by the Felpham Gazette and several superstitious frog-giggers to be wandering and writhing naked and shiny and moist in the greenbrier and wild grape of the woods behind Redgunk Cemetery.” The stories alternately incorporate elements of fantasy, horror, and SF, but a consistent sense of gallows humor unites the book from the first tale to the last…*digressive maximalism…But the real joy of the collection is in watching this world accumulate from story to story.”

— Kirkus Review, 2021