Wittgenstein's Lolita (edition 2006)

Two stories by William Gay: the title story, and The Iceman. Also an afterword by J.M. White; basically a short biography of Gay.

In Wittgenstein’s Lolita, an older man in a rural area of what is probably Tennessee, since that’s where Gay set most if not all of his writing, gets involved with an abused woman after her husband shoots his dog. A woman that “looked like a fairytale princess a few years past happily ever after who’d rethought her position and gone over to the dark side.” He has tragedy in his past and now is facing more of it being forced upon him.

Another tragedy confronts a young drifter in The Iceman when he catches a ride with a barely stable iceman in his rickety truck.

These are two forceful stories that as usual have elements of Gay’s beautiful descriptions of nature to complement the sense of calamity: “Single file they came through the frozen woods, the earth hard as stone underfoot, their breath a smoking vapor that haloed their faces. Leaves clashed in a soft harsh musical as wind chimes.” ( )