Lee Clay Johnson w/ Gary Fisketjon, BLOODLINE

Lee Clay Johnson visits the store to discuss his new novel, Bloodline, alongside fiction editor Gary Fisketjon. Bloodline is the first book of Panamerica Books, the publishing imprint of County Highway magazine. Mesmerizing and darkly comic, Bloodline is an exploration of masculinity run amuck, of femininity’s strength and resolve, of the burdens of heritage and history. This novel is Lee Clay Johnson working at the height of his lyrical powers—a bravura performance.

County Highway is a 20-page broadsheet produced by actual human beings, containing the best new writing you will encounter about America. It features reports on the political and spiritual crises that are gripping our country and their deeper cultural and historical sources; regular columns about agriculture, civil liberties, animals, herbal medicine, and living off the grid, mentally and physically; essays about literature and art, and an entire section devoted to music.

About Bloodline

Freshly unemployed in Kentucky, Winston Alcorn hauls his wife and two young sons deep into Tennessee, not in pursuit of a job, but of his rightful historic destiny.

Thus begins a generational saga of mendacious transformations: Winston first becomes the owner of the mill where he intentionally cut off his own hand; then “Wins-a-ton,” a showboat auctioneer enshrouded by Confederate myth, endless bluster, and greedy megalomania that soon turns his bloodline into a noose. One son follows in his footsteps and the other battles his shambolic legacy in hopes of a decent life as their father continues to rampage—and their long-suffering mother lies in wait.

Meanwhile, Miss Becka, the aging mill owner deposed by Winston, buries her father and finds herself the last in her bloodline. She now works at the post office and tends bar, disgusted by the ongoing spectacle of her brutish antagonist—who’s gradually parlayed his carnival-barker persona into that of a Dixie-first politician promising to make this tattered corner of the South great again. Miss Becka basks in the remains of her countryside’s riverine beauty and plots for an altogether different future while counseling a young woman who becomes entangled with both of the Alcorn sons. And at long last, the women defiled by Winston begin clawing back what he stole away.

Lee Clay Johnson was born and raised around Nashville, Tennessee, in a family of bluegrass musicians. He was kicked out of high school on the first day of class, and soon thereafter began touring the country as a bass player in various bands. He attended Tennessee State University, then transferred up north to Bennington College, where he studied with free jazz pioneer Milford Graves and became the first person in his family to earn a college degree. He received an MFA from the University of Virginia, under the guidance of Deborah Eisenberg and others, and went on to publish his first novel, Nitro Mountain (Knopf ’16) which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in County Highway, The Southampton Review, Ploughshares, Lit Hub, Oxford American, The Common, Appalachian Heritage, Salamander, Mississippi Review, and more. He served as a fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Right now, he lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, the writer Sasha Wiseman, and teaches at St. Joseph’s University, New York, where he directs the Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA program. Bloodline is his second novel.

Gary Fisketjon is the literary editor for County Highway and its publishing imprint Panamerica Books. Previously, he worked at Random House, Vintage Books, and the Atlantic Monthly Press until 1990 when he joined Alfred A. Knopf, where he became Vice President and Editor at Large until 2019. He was the creator of the Vintage Contemporaries line of books at Random House. He’s edited a long list of literary greats including Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver, and dozens more.

Bloodline will be available for purchase at the event.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, United States