Reviews

Praise for The Past is Never

“The evocation of the South and its people, the feelings of family and the brooding atmosphere of rural landscape are the hues employed by this skilled writer to paint a picture that persists in the mind of the reader. The subtle and deftly structured dialogue is genuine and truly evokes the speech of the South with never a slip into patois or dialect, a difficult task masterfully achieved. Aptly compared with Flannery O’Connor and Dorothy Allison, the author has given us a memorable read.” — Eric Boss for Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association
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“Tyson’s novel is a profound entry point toward the region’s many interconnected caves and deep mysteries.” —Entropy Magazine
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“Tyson’s stylistic writing and unique voice bring the reader into the heart of the Mississippi Delta and creates an eerie atmosphere similar to that of William Faulkner’s Sanctuary and William Gay’s Twilight.” —The New Orleans Review of Books


The Literary South calls The Past is Never an “extraordinary example of southern gothic literature.”
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“The heart of Tiffany Quay Tyson’s The Past is Never is the exploration of Bert’s character as she grows and learns. Her journey, in Southern Gothic style, has her contending with familial strife, mental illness, crime, and ultimately a world, whether rural Mississippi or the Everglades, that wants to keep its secrets.” —Florida Book Review
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“Mesmerizing southern gothic. . . . The author’s skillful storytelling reaches a high mark with this novel. Nothing is as it first appears in this dark, complex story that draws upon inner strength, extended family ties and personal determination. As with her first novel, Tyson has an award winner on her hands.” —The Clarion-Ledger ”
Read the full review at Lemuria Books (originally printed in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger)


The Past is Never reads like a new kind of southern fiction.” —Allen Boyer writing for HottyToddy.com
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“Tyson offers an intriguing exploration of family and identity alongside the complexities and emotions of life’s haunting regrets.” —Booklist
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“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, award-winning author of The Blood of Heaven and Secessia


“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, award-winning author of The Home Place


“Tyson writes characters so distinct you’ll swear you can hear their footsteps outside your reading room, and does so in prose so elegant you have to remember to breathe. The Past Is Never is a beautiful, moving, brilliant novel.”—Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike and Cry Father


“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, author of Cottonmouths


“Creatures, real and imagined, fact and fable, inhabit Tiffany Quay Tyson’s South, a place stranger than life and all too real. The Past Is Never will alter your vision, make you see anew things you thought you already knew. It’s a flash of lightning in a summer storm.”—William Haywood Henderson, author of Augusta Locke


“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, author of Among the Lesser Gods


Praise for Three Rivers

“Jackson native Tiffany Tyson creates the perfect storm in her first novel.” Mississippi Magazine


“Three Rivers feels like a modern Southern gothic tale, with big themes and memorable characters. Compelling and entertaining, it’s worth your time.” —Mississippi Business Journal
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Three Rivers explores the unknowable relationship between the choices life demands and the permission it doesn’t ask for.”—The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
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Three Rivers is reminiscent of a Beth Henley play or a Flannery O’Connor story. At its contemporary Southern Gothic best, Three Rivers propels the reader along like the deep, fast currents of the floodwaters Tyson so aptly describes, rushing toward a poignant, cathartic ending.”—The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
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Three Rivers is highly readable, rich in character and story with a delightful dark humor. It engages us; we care about these people – in spite of their flaws, or maybe because of them. We want to know what happens to them. Will they survive? Or will their flaws and poor choices bring them down? In the end the novel is about redemption.” —The North Denver Tribune
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“Tyson…writes with exuberance, confidence, and humor. This is her first novel; it should not be her last.” —Delta Magazine


“Tyson’s good-old-fashioned Southern drama appears right in time for storm season.”—Booklist


“Tyson’s debut is a modern Southern novel with a dark gothic feel and a few elements of magical realism.”—Library Journal


“Tiffany Quay Tyson’s beguiling debut draws the reader into a fast-paced story of family secrets and lies—no member of the Mahaffey family is quite what they seem. Three Rivers has all the necessary ingredients for a grand Southern tale—complicated families trying to love each other better, epic weather, and a spiritual quest.”—Amy Franklin-Willis, author of The Lost Saints of Tennessee


“Tiffany Quay Tyson’s funny, furious, and tender debut is a rush of a read, full of all the beauty and strangeness of the modern South.”–Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters


Three Rivers is a heartfelt, redemptive, sometimes harrowing, and irresistible novel. Tiffany Quay Tyson is an enchanter casting her spell with lyrical prose, evocative details, and spellbinding characters. She knows that every story is many stories, and she handles the complex tales of violence, infidelity, poverty and dire family secrets with intelligence, grace, and courage. She gives me what I long for in fiction: compassion, provocation, and characters I care about as much as she does.”—John Dufresne, author of No Regrets, Coyote


“A dangerous storm in the Mississippi Delta sets this page-turning, emotion-filled debut in motion. Tyson delights throughout with richly crafted characters that will leave you cheering them on as they struggle to find their way to calmer days.”—Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of The Funeral Dress


Three Rivers, Tiffany Quay Tyson’s wonderful first novel, is a rich exploration of love, family, obligation, and the South, at times moody and poignant, at times darkly funny. As storm waters flood the Mississippi Delta, three stories converge, secrets come to light, and the characters push toward renewal and a fresh understanding. This story will stick with you long after you close the cover on the final glimpse of the wild, musical landscape.”—William Haywood Henderson, author of Augusta Locke


Three Rivers is a torrent of a novel, pulling us into its current and hurling us along from first page to last. Tiffany Quay Tyson writes with a vibrancy, humor, and pathos that will warm your spirit, excite your passions, and melt your heart. At times tender, at times violent, and riveting throughout, Tyson’s debut continues the grand tradition of southern storytelling at its finest.”—Gary Schanbacher, author of Crossing Purgatory and Migration Patterns

Tiffany Quay Tyson