J.E.S. Hays lives in Upstate South Carolina, so here are five books set in the state for you to peruse:
A Delirious Summer by Ray Blackston: To Neil Rucker, seven months, one week, and a day is too long to wait in between dates. But life as a Spanish language teacher to missionaries in Ecuador affords little opportunity for romance. When his worst student, Jay Jarvis, suggests a respite in Greenville, South Carolina, so begins Neil’s delirious summer. Neil sees his chance to meet a sweet succession of southern women, but little does he know that the girls of Greenville are now more elusive than a snowflake in the Ecuadorian jungle.
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison: Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family—a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard-drinking men who shoot up each other’s trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective.
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson: Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.
Someone to Kiss by Scotty Cade: Dane McCormick’s job negotiating leases and building out furnished office suites takes him all over the country. He stays until the job is done—and then he moves on. As satisfying as the job is, it leaves him no place to call home and no chance to build a personal life. After arriving in Greenville, South Carolina, for a job, a severe stomach virus knocks Dane for a loop. He finds a local urgent care clinic… and a tall, dark, and handsome doctor who goes well above and beyond his duties to treat Dane. The doctor’s bedside manner makes Dane forget all about his stomach flu.
The Old Maid’s Club by Steve Brown: With the tragic death of her family in 1915, Allison McKelvey was sent to live with three old maids. Not just any old maids, but women who were members of the Old Maids’ Club, in which membership was mandatory, not voluntary. Mandatory because each of the three women, fifty years earlier, had stood on a balcony and waved her handkerchief as her beau rode off to fight the invading Yankees. None of their young men returned. Neither did their brothers, cousins, uncles, or fathers. Others returned maimed and crippled, broken in both body and spirit, unable to assist in rebuilding the South. And into this club came young Allison McKelvey, an orphan with her whole life before her. Some changes were about to be made in the Old Maids’ Club.