Taylor Brown is a Savannah-based novelist whose work builds on and extends southern and Appalachian literary traditions. His essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times and Garden & Gun.
Born in Brunswick in 1982, Brown grew up on the Georgia coast. After graduating from the University of Georgia in 2005, he lived and worked various jobs in Buenos Aires and San Francisco before moving to western North Carolina. There, he founded BikeBound.com, an online publication devoted to vintage motorcycles. His first short stories were published in 2008.
Brown’s fiction explores southern landscapes and straddles historical and contemporary contexts. He told an interviewer that “I have always gravitated toward Southern and Appalachian writers. Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy were two of my earliest influences, along with Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, and Harry Crews. Georgia’s own Janisse Ray, Melissa Fay Greene, and Mary Hood remain close to my heart.” Brown notes the influence of music on his work, including contemporary and traditional folk ballads. Environmental concerns also figure prominently in his fiction.
Brown expanded the title story of his short story collection, In the Season of Blood and Gold (2014), into his first novel, Fallen Land (2016). Set during the Civil War (1861–65), the novel’s title refers to the land and culture devastated by that conflict, especially by the passage of Sherman’s invading forces through Georgia. The narrative follows two youths dodging marauders on their way from the Virginia mountains to the Georgia coast, and the book includes remarkable descriptions of the state’s landscapes.
Brown’s second novel, River of Kings (2017), is set on the Altamaha River. Two brothers kayak down the river to spread their father’s ashes while searching for answers about his suspicious death. Their story interweaves with two others: one about a 1560s French expedition up the Altamaha, the other focused on the father of the two brothers spanning the 1970s to 1990s. A unifying motif is the “Altamaha-ha,” a mythic river creature that haunts each character. The Altamaha area’s environmental and economic despoilation is a major theme: exploitation of native tribes, pollution by pulp mills, and crime both domestic and foreign.
Set in a North Carolina landscape blighted by the chestnut virus, industrial development, and rising waters from hydroelectric impoundments, The Gods of Howl Mountain (2018) focuses on a wounded Korean War veteran and whiskey runner. Central among the memorable cast of characters is Granny May, a folk healer and former prostitute who must decide whether to aid her grandson in his quest to uncover the family’s dark secrets. An atmospheric and energetic novel, the action is propelled by intensely lyrical prose.
Brown’s most recent book, Pride of Eden (2020), is about an animal sanctuary on the Georgia coast owned by a Vietnam War (1964-73) veteran. Brown’s distinctive use of vivid language and character development blend smoothly with the novel’s concerns for the plight of wild animals in the modern world. In 2019 Brown served as writer in residence at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He continues to write novels, including Wingwalkers, which is loosely connected to William Faulkner’s novel Pylon (1935) and describes the lives of a man and woman involved in stunt flying. Faulkner himself appears as a character in the novel.
