Russell Banks died in 2023 at age-82.

His novels are known for “detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters” …

Banks was the 1985 recipient of the John Dos Passos Prize for fiction. 

Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter were finalists for the 1986 and 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction respectively …

I only knew the name as the author of The Sweet Hereafter (1991).

American Spirits (2024) is his last publication.

Grim but compelling narratives from this fine writer.

Three stories unearth the bitterness and violence seething in a working-class American town.

These long narratives by the late Banks are all set in the northern New York village of Sam Dent that featured in The Sweet Hereafter (1991). But where that story dealt with a tragedy that affected the whole town, these explore the welter of pain that can afflict a single house. …

Kirkus Reviews – American Spirits

He based these stories on chatter he heard from strangers while sitting in a bar in Keene, New York. Some wearing MAGA hats. 😀

He was watching sports on TV while listening in to the conversations of drunk patrons.

Russell Banks writes to be a better person.

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