A Los Angeles Review Best Book of 2017 From a compelling new voice in LGBTQ and Southern fiction, a gripping tale of crime and desire amid small-town America’s meth epidemic. This was Drear’s Bluff. Nothing bad happened here. People didn’t disappear. College was supposed to be an escape for Emily Skinner. But after failing out of school, she's left with no choice but to return to her small Arkansas hometown, a place run on gossip and good Christian values. She's not alone. Emily's former best friend—and childhood crush—Jody Monroe is back with a baby. Emily can't resist the opportunity to reconnect, despite the uncomfortable way things ended between them and her mom's disapproval of their friendship. When Emily stumbles upon a meth lab on Jody's property, she realizes just how far they’ve both fallen. Emily intends to keep her distance from Jody, but when she's kicked out of her house with no money and nowhere to go, a paying job as Jody's live-in babysitter is hard to pass up. As they grow closer, Emily glimpses a future for the first time since coming home. She dismisses her worries; after all, Jody is a single mom. The meth lab is a means to an end. And besides, for Emily, Jody is the real drug. But when Jody's business partner goes missing, and the lies begin to pile up, Emily will learn just how far Jody is willing to go to save her own skin—and how much Emily herself has risked for the love of someone who may never truly love her back. Echoing the work of authors like Daniel Woodrell and Sarah Waters, Cottonmouths is an unflinching story about the ways in which the past pulls us back . . . despite our best efforts to leave it behind.

Freddie Cottonmouth and his best friend Tug, a furry beast with a heart of gold, love going on adventures. But when Freddie breaks a big promise, he discovers the effects of sin, the cost of sacrifice, and the power of redemption.

Forced to spend his summer vacation with relatives in Louisiana, twelve-year-old Mitch Valentine finds himself a candidate for the Cottonmouth Club when he and a group of local boys become involved in secretive outdoor activities.

The cottonmouth, also known as the water moccasin, is the only venomous water snake in North America. When alarmed, the cottonmouth hisses and shows the cotton-white color inside its mouth. That’s enough to scare even the most ferocious predators away. Close-up photographs of cottonmouths in the wild give readers the opportunity to learn all about these deadly creatures—from their lethal venom to their natural hunting abilities.

A deadly pandemic has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. Dr. Alton McGuire, a brilliant, but retired molecular biologist has done everything possible to keep he and his beloved wife, Marine, safe. A brilliant, but retired educator in her own right she has remained out of the public, in an effort to shelter in place. An unfortunate mishap threatens them all, and brings Dr. Lillian Manning into the picture. Dr. Manning, a senior pediatrics resident resides in their guest quarters and must play an integral role in the effort to thwart a danger that rivals the pandemic. Dr. Manning is extremely careful in all of her comings and goings in order to protect her aged friends from any contact with the virus. With no parents of her own she has largely adopted the McGuires as her parents. Suffering total exhaustion most days from the front-line fight against the virus, she continues to try to be a part of their family life. In one volume the narrative highlights the ills of an underserved medical community as well as many of the day to day challenges faced by groups of individuals that face unequal treatment. In addition, it outlines the terrible nature of infectious diseases and highlights the loneliness that may be a part of these types of infectious diseases. Cottonmouth will leave you with a new appreciation for those that fight on the front lines, and for the family members of those that have lost their lives when uncontrollable diseases strike.

Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Originally published in 1941, Cottonmouth is an Alabama novel like no other in its evocation of the sights, sounds, and smells of the city of Mobile, and in its depiction of a young boy growing up in the Deep South during the early 20th century. Highly autobiographical, the book is, in a real sense, two stories in one: the biography of a boy from his earliest memories through high school, and the life of a city in the years between the two world wars. In his introduction to this reprint within The Library of Alabama Classics, Benjamin B. Williams presents the author, Julian Lee Rayford, the literary figure and well-known Mobilian, and places his work not only in the context of the times but also within the life of the city Rayford loved. Cottonmouth is an animated, vigorous, and intensely nostalgic portrayal of life in Mobile. With fine literary skill, Rayford captures the heartbeat of the city, and through the character Paul, reminds the reader of the joys, sorrows, successes, and failures of childhood and adolescence.

Edgy and ironic, Clint Catalyst exposes the underside of all his many subjects - gay relationships, backwater adolescence, and spiraling addiction. Whether he's writing about a chance sexual encounter at a Goth club called Lilith ("Some New Kind of Kick") or revealing the inner thoughts of young hustlers in Hollywood ("Metaphor, and Remorse"), Catalyst reveals his characters' innermost longings.