Early from the Dance
“The kind of book that makes you remember first loves, best friends, summer dreams. And it almost makes you believe in second chances.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Best boyhood friends from opposite sides of the Killdeer, NC tracks, Cary and Adam are inseparable. Nothing can threaten their friendship. That is until Jane McCrae comes into their lives like a hurricane. When Cary falls in love with her, the boys’ twosome becomes a tightly knit group of three. They eagerly make plans for the summer after high school graduation. When Cary must remain in Killdeer because of family problems, Adam and Jane head off to the Outer Banks alone. Adam promises Cary he will keep an eye on Jane, but instead falls in love with her under the spell of the Lost Colony hotel and its mysterious and charming proprietor. In a summer full of bright promise and heartache, Adam’s feelings for Jane force him to make a difficult choice that will haunt him for years to come.
Thirteen years later, Adam a successful artist living in New York City , returns home to Killdeer and catches a glimpse of Jane in a gilded mirror at a party. Together they set out on a daring present-day journey to recover the past they’ve both tried to escape.
A novel of innocence lost and the redemptive power of memory and forgiveness, Early from the Dance is a rich, entrancing, and unforgettable story from a writer of extraordinary gifts.
“David Payne is in top form, and it’s some of the strongest, most demanding writing to be found in American fiction today.”
— The Los Angeles Times
Newly Reissued, Available From Ingram
Early from the Dance
(ISBN 9798218155155)
“Reading stretches of Early From the Dance is like attending a play in which every line is a curtain line. Payne has the deepest human sympathy for his characters and knowledge of the heart; everyone in this book comes alive… Payne is extraordinarily gifted.”
–The Boston Globe
Ruin Creek
(ISBN 9798218155186)
"I begin with what may seem a bold observation: David Payne is the most gifted American novelist of his generation. Ruin Creek is the best new novel I've read this year. As in Early from the Dance, he sets his literary table on the Carolina Outer Banks, a literary territory as palpable in these pages as. the Salinas Valley in John Steinbeck's."
—The Dallas Morning News
Gravesend Light
(ISBN 9798218155193)
“If you don’t belong to a book club, start one with this book... the grains of this plot eventually gain an irresistible momentum till it begins to move like an avalanche, crashing toward a spectacular natural disaster and a moral calamity.”
–The Christian Science Monitor
Barefoot to Avalon
“This is a brave book with beautiful sentences on every page...Payne writes with the intensity and urgency of a man trying to save his own life.” —Carmela Ciuraru, The New York Times “A memoir as raw, intimate and courageous as a series of midnight confessions fueled by a bottle of vodka... [Payne's] barefoot journey, every brave and bloody step over broken glass, shows how even the darkest emotions and deepest wounds can yield to love.” —Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Back to Wando Passo
Back to Wando Passo quivers with authentic life and is so bold in concept and audacious in scope that it seems like the summing up and exclamation point of a great writer's career. The novel contains everything -- from the horror of 1860s rice culture slavery, to the perils of modern love, to the history of rock and roll . . . Payne takes on the whole known world and pulls it off with the deftness of a writer in his prime.” –Pat Conroy
Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street
“This novel, with its glorious style and rich profusion of detail, should remind readers of the time, fading into memory, when the works of John Barth began to burst on the literary horizon... absorbing and deeply rewarding.”
–The Washington Post