Murder, Race, and a High-Stakes Election Haunt Oak Island in Wiley Cash’s “When Ghosts Come Home”
Podcast: Download (Duration: 39:38 — 36.3MB)
In this episode 245, we visit with Wiley Cash, the New York Times bestselling author of “When Ghosts Come Home,” a thrilling and suspenseful mystery against the backdrop of the Coastal Carolinas in 1984.
When a plane crashes in the middle of the night at a nearby airfield, Sheriff Winston Barnes discovers the body of a Black man shot dead in the grass near the crash site. With a long suspect list, including the pilot of the downed plane, simmering racial tensions, and an uncertain future, Barnes sets out to do his duty amongst extraordinary circumstances.
Lauren Wilkinson, author of “American Spy”, had this to say about the book, “Wiley Cash’s latest is an unputdownable knock-out: written in deft, thrilling prose, this book is both a gripping murder mystery and a thoughtful exploration of systemic racism in America. The perfect novel for our present moment.”
Connect With the Author
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About the Author:
Wiley Cash is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home, the acclaimed This Dark Road to Mercy, and The Last Ballad. His new novel, WHEN GHOSTS COME HOME, was published September 21, 2021. A winner and finalist for numerous prizes, he is a two-time winner of the Southern Book Prize and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. He is the founder of the Open Canon Book Club and serves as writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, photographer Mallory Cash, and their two daughters.
Additional Endorsements for “When Ghosts Come Home”
“I loved it and devoured it with fury, straight to its blazing end.”
- Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers
“In When Ghosts Come Home Wiley Cash reveals how family and history and the threads that connect us can contain such mystery. This is a masterful example of storytelling, told by one of the most open-hearted and clear-eyed writers I know.”
- Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here
“A brilliant portrait of how we arrived at the present, exploring race, class, greed, and how close we’ve always been to both the dangers that never hid themselves and the dangers we didn’t see coming. This breathtaking story offers insight, heartbreak, and grace in equal measure.”
- Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections
“A fascinating, nuanced meditation on life – both the living of it and the taking of it – in the crucible of small-town America. Wiley Cash is our guide through this maze of old secrets and fresh hurts. Take his hand, follow his lead and face the truth.”
- A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland
“A treatise on race in America wrapped in a family drama wrapped in a mystery, it brings us a thoughtful examination of a good man’s struggle to do right under trying circumstances. Cash puts his whole heart on the page with these flawed, true characters, and the reward is ours.”
- Therese Anne Fowler, author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
“When Ghosts Come Home is a gripping mystery as complex and layered as the characters who inhabit it. Set in 1984, Wiley Cash’s exploration of race, justice, and grief – of the fault lines that rip apart families and communities – could not be more timely.”
- Lou Berney, author of November Road
“Wiley Cash has written a suspenseful, yet heart-tugging novel about community, duty, loss, racial divides, family and love. When Ghosts Come Home is a compassionate and timely gem.”
- De’Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills]
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