**WINNER of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction**
**WINNER of the Mississippi Author Award for Adult Fiction selected by the Mississippi Library Association**
**WINNER of the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Fiction**
**WINNER of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction**
**Finalist for the 2019 Colorado Book Awards for Literary Fiction***
"An ode to William Faulkner. . . . As Southern as it gets."—Deep South Magazine
A compelling addition to contemporary Southern Gothic fiction, deftly weaving together local legends, family secrets, and the search for a missing child.
Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water. Until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes. Not drowned, not lost . . . simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.
Years pass with no sign, no hope of ever finding Pansy alive, and as surely as their mother died of a broken heart, Bert and Willet can't move on. So when clues surface drawing them to the remote tip of Florida, they drop everything and drive south. Deep in the murky depths of the Florida Everglades they may find the answer to Pansy's mysterious disappearance . . . but truth, like the past, is sometimes better left where it lies.
Perfect for fans of Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Allison, The Past Is Never is an atmospheric, haunting story of myths, legends, and the good and evil we carry in our hearts.
Genre: Literary Fiction
**WINNER of the Mississippi Author Award for Adult Fiction selected by the Mississippi Library Association**
**WINNER of the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Fiction**
**WINNER of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction**
**Finalist for the 2019 Colorado Book Awards for Literary Fiction***
"An ode to William Faulkner. . . . As Southern as it gets."—Deep South Magazine
A compelling addition to contemporary Southern Gothic fiction, deftly weaving together local legends, family secrets, and the search for a missing child.
Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water. Until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes. Not drowned, not lost . . . simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.
Years pass with no sign, no hope of ever finding Pansy alive, and as surely as their mother died of a broken heart, Bert and Willet can't move on. So when clues surface drawing them to the remote tip of Florida, they drop everything and drive south. Deep in the murky depths of the Florida Everglades they may find the answer to Pansy's mysterious disappearance . . . but truth, like the past, is sometimes better left where it lies.
Perfect for fans of Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Allison, The Past Is Never is an atmospheric, haunting story of myths, legends, and the good and evil we carry in our hearts.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Wise, disturbing, and quietly powerful, The Past Is Never is an American novel for our time. With rare and unflinching honesty, Tyson shows us the darkness, then reaches into it and extracts light. The discovery is breathtaking." - Margo Catts
"Tiffany Quay Tyson has written a gripping novel steeped in the Southern gothic tradition, with a compelling mix of contemporary grit. Dark as the quarry that spooks a Mississippi town and twisty as the Florida mangrove tunnels traversed in search of answers to unraveling family mysteries, The Past is Never had me turning pages long into the night." - Kelly J Ford
"You hold in your hands Stranger Things but with a satisfying ending. In the sort of cleanly tuned prose that makes another fiction writer happy, Tyson penetrates your imagination with characters and places so real they feel like your own suppressed memories. I'll never look at the Everglades the same way again." - Carrie La Seur
"Haunting and beautiful, steeped in history and myth, The Past is Never unwinds the darkest knots of what binds families together and reveals the marvels and monsters which lie within us all. In lucid, piercing prose, Tiffany Quay Tyson pushes to the raw edge of life, where the real and the unreal almost touch. This is great southern fiction." - Kent Wascom
"Tiffany Quay Tyson has written a gripping novel steeped in the Southern gothic tradition, with a compelling mix of contemporary grit. Dark as the quarry that spooks a Mississippi town and twisty as the Florida mangrove tunnels traversed in search of answers to unraveling family mysteries, The Past is Never had me turning pages long into the night." - Kelly J Ford
"You hold in your hands Stranger Things but with a satisfying ending. In the sort of cleanly tuned prose that makes another fiction writer happy, Tyson penetrates your imagination with characters and places so real they feel like your own suppressed memories. I'll never look at the Everglades the same way again." - Carrie La Seur
"Haunting and beautiful, steeped in history and myth, The Past is Never unwinds the darkest knots of what binds families together and reveals the marvels and monsters which lie within us all. In lucid, piercing prose, Tiffany Quay Tyson pushes to the raw edge of life, where the real and the unreal almost touch. This is great southern fiction." - Kent Wascom
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