Mary Hood's most recent book is the collection A Clear View of the Southern Sky (2015), which includes the novella length-work "Seam Busters." Her previous books include the novel Familiar Heat (1995) and the short story collections And Venus is Blue (1986) and How Far She Went (1984), a winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her work has been published in the Georgia Review, North American Review, and Yankee, among other publications.
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Familiar HeatA Novel
Faye fell to the deck in slow motion. It took forever for this part to end. “Hold still,” he warned as he cut her out of her clothes, the blade cool against her belly. “You won’t be needing these,” he said, and she knew rape wasn’t the last thing. She knew he intended to kill. That was next, when he had done with her. It meant something to him to know he was disgusting her now, hurting her, terrorizing her, it was why he did it, why he kept his eyes on her face, as he labored over her, his good arm corded and trembling, the point of the knife at her throat. She stared up past him to the square of sky framed by the hatch, waiting for it to be over, this now, waiting for the next thing, her next chance, her last chance.
Familiar Heat:A Novel -
Familiar HeatA Novel
The day Cristo died, his mother’s secret life ended. She used to take off her wedding ring to wash dishes, and drop it into Cristo’s baby cup on the windowsill while she worked, and when she had finished at the sink, and the counters and the stove were wiped clean, she’d smooth almond lotion onto her hands and massage it in, then slip her ring back on, always doing this, every time, except when she fled on one of her musical and sexual fugues, taking nothing but the northbound bus, no luggage, no ID, nothing pawnable, just cash in her pocket for bus and concert tickets, coffee and cigarettes and incidentals—someone else would pay for the drinks and meals and room, if it came to that, and that’s what it usually came to, and her staying gone as long as her mood and mad money held out.
Familiar Heat:A Novel -
Familiar HeatA Novel
That boat had been there all along, and he’d ridden past it—the bus crossed high over the marsh at that point, on the Interstate, and the view unblocked, the last gold-dusty light almost signaling in its slant, drawing his drowsy eyes to the skip-planked dock and barnacled pilings. He’d always sat on the other side of the bus, or was dozing, or talking, or getting things together for when they got to town. There the boat stood, his future, shining in the raveled fringe of the marsh, the sungold as thick as pollen, every blade of grass burnished, and the creek with that same gold in its reflected sky. The weathered wood looked gentle, gracious, elegant in its curves, in that light. He loved the boat at first sight.
Familiar Heat:A Novel
“ . . . if Ms. Hood . . . offers her characters few comforts in their struggle to live, neither does she provide her stories with false epiphanies or literary redemptions. She is consummately honest. She does not fear the bleak conclusions of some lives or the quiet, fleeting triumphs of others. She believes that the hopes, the trials, the weariness of spirit and even the difficult loves of her characters, all unresolved, are well worthy of our attention, and in her capable hands a reader cannot help but believe the same.” —Alice McDermott, The New York Times [on And Venus is Blue]
“Ms. Hood’s work in distinctly Southern, rural and marked by a richness of language and characterization typical of the best of Southern literature . . . [She] has an uncanny knack for conveying the timeless quality of her rural settings and people while acknowledging the dark, intruding element of contemporary life in its more divisive and violent guises.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution [on How Far She Went]
“Mary Hood writes with a country grace, planting her perceptions in solid ground. In her cosmos, keeping the earth underfoot, rather than overhead, qualifies as a triumph.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer [on How Far She Went]
Selected Works
