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Penguin Random House (July 1, 2025)
First Edition. Signed.
Freshly unemployed in Kentucky, Winston Alcorn hauls his wife and two young sons deep
into Tennessee, not in pursuit of a job, but of his rightful historic destiny.
Thus begins a generational saga of mendacious transformations: Winston first
becomes the owner of the mill where he intentionally cut off his own hand; then
“Wins-a-ton,” a showboat auctioneer enshrouded by Confederate myth, endless bluster, and
greedy megalomania that soon turns his bloodline into a noose. One son follows in his
footsteps and the other battles his shambolic legacy in hopes of a decent life as their father
continues to rampage—and their long-suffering mother lies in wait.
Meanwhile, Miss Becka, the aging mill owner deposed by Winston, buries her father
and finds herself the last in her bloodline. She now works at the post office and tends bar,
disgusted by the ongoing spectacle of her brutish antagonist—who’s gradually parlayed his
carnival-barker persona into that of a Dixie-first politician promising to make this tattered
corner of the South great again. Miss Becka basks in the remains of her countryside’s
riverine beauty and plots for an altogether different future while counseling a young woman
who becomes entangled with both of the Alcorn sons. And at long last, the women defiled
by Winston begin clawing back what he stole away.
Mesmerizing and darkly comic, Bloodline is an exploration of masculinity run amuck,
of femininity’s strength and resolve, of the burdens of heritage and history. This novel is Lee
Clay Johnson working at the height of his lyrical powers—a bravura performance.
Lee Clay Johnson was born and raised around Nashville, Tennessee, in a family of bluegrass
musicians. He was kicked out of high school on the first day of class, and soon thereafter
began touring the country as a bass player in various bands. He attended Tennessee State
University, then transferred up north to Bennington College, where he studied with free
jazz pioneer Milford Graves and became the first person in his family to earn a college
degree. He received an MFA from the University of Virginia, under the guidance of
Deborah Eisenberg and others, and went on to publish his first novel, Nitro Mountain (Knopf
’16) which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of
Arts & Letters. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in County Highway, The
Southampton Review, Ploughshares, Lit Hub, Oxford American, The Common, Appalachian
Heritage, Salamander, Mississippi Review, and more. He served as a fellow at the Sewanee
Writers’ Conference. Right now, he lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, the
writer Sasha Wiseman, and teaches at St. Joseph’s University, New York, where he directs
the Brooklyn Writers Foundry Low-Residency MFA program. Bloodline is his second novel.
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