USC Aiken English Professor Publishes Two New Books

Aiken, SC (05/29/2019) — Over the course of this academic year, University of South Carolina Aiken English Professor Dr. Andrew Geyer added two new books to his repertoire of published works.

In the fall, Geyer published Dancing on Barbed Wire, edited by Dr. Tom Mack, English professor emeritus, and co-written with Terry Dalrymple and Jerry Craven. The 16 interlocked tales in this hybrid story cycle move at a clip through time and space, from the Civil War to the present, from the sun-scorched brush country to the lush and sometimes lethal Piney Woods.

"Although readers may detect shades of Hawthorne and Faulkner in the haunted houses, serial characters, disembodied voices, and rattling family skeletons appearing in these stories, their ethos is distinctly Southern and Texan," said Geyer.

In the spring, Geyer published Lesser Mountains. The 19 interwoven narratives in this story cycle delve into the lives of the fictional people living in and around the small town of Jordan, Texas, in much the same way Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kittredge does for those living in Crosby, Maine.

"The voices of these characters are raw and real, and they cry out to be heard," he said.

"Texas settings, common themes, shared imagery, and intertwined plots combine to reveal the life arcs of everyday folks who find themselves displaced by the passing of the rural Southwest Texas way of life."

The protagonists for the major plotlines are introduced in the opening story, and the subsequent narratives link the trajectories of their lives in unexpected and fascinating ways -- a novelistic effect that makes the whole much more than just the sum of its parts.

Awards and honors already accumulated for the individual stories in Lesser Mountains include the 2015 Spur Award for Best Short Fiction from the Western Writers of America and the 2011 Gary Wilson Award from descant.

With these two new books, Geyer has now published a total of nine book-length works of fiction -- an oeuvre that reflects his two "homes." After growing up on a cattle ranch in Southwest Texas, he has now spent almost 20 years in the Palmetto State. While many of his eclectic works are centered in the Texas Hill Country, three of his books, and many of his individual short stories, are set in South Carolina.

Geyer was recently selected for induction into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. The related ceremony will take place on the USC Aiken campus in April 2020. In April 2012, he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.

Also in 2012, Geyer was named a Breakthrough Rising Star by the University of South Carolina. This designation is reserved for promising faculty who are engaged in innovative research or creative scholarly pursuits that will likely propel them to the top of their fields.

Geyer earned a PhD in American literature from Texas Tech University, a Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves as the chair of the USC Aiken English Department and as fiction editor for Concho River Review.

Other books by Geyer include Parallel Hours, which he co-authored with Jerry Craven, and Texas 5X5 (2014) co-authored with Jerry Craven, Jan Seale, Terry Dalrymple, and Kristin van Namen. His individually authored books are Dixie Fish (2011), a novel; Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin (2010), a story cycle; Meeting the Dead (2007), a novel; and Whispers in Dust and Bone (2003), a story cycle that won the silver medal for short fiction in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards and a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.

Media Attachments