Barefoot to Avalon

“A brave book with beautiful sentences on every page.”—New York Times

In 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle, fishtailed, flipped over in the road, and died instantly. Soon thereafter, Davids life hit a downward spiral. His career came to a standstill, his marriage disintegrated, and his drinking went from a cocktail-hour indulgence to a full-blown addiction. He found himself haunted not only by George A.s death, but also by his brothers manic depression, a hereditary illness that overlaid a dark family history whose roots now gripped David.

Barefoot to Avalon is Paynes earnest and unflinching account of George A. and their boyhood footrace that lasted long into their adulthood, defining their relationship and their lives. As universal as it is intimate, this is an exceptional memoir of brotherhood, of sibling rivalries and sibling love, and of the torments a family can hold silent and carry across generations.

Praise for BAREFOOT TO AVALON

“This is a brave book with beautiful sentences on every page, but theres nothing showy about it. Mr. Payne writes with the intensity and urgency of a man trying to save his own life.”—Claudia Ciuraru, The New York Times

"Burns starkly and powerfully...a book that is, as much as anything, a study in the power of inexhaustible candor...like the best memoirs, its about something far harder to pin down, something unspecific and ineffable in the way time moves and lives fade, the moments that none of us can get back....Paynes writing is loose, confident and snappy, and he has a rare ability to distill enormous scope into a single sentence, sometimes a single image...[Payne] gives us the ambiguities of real life, a story that is sometimes hard to take, but always worth it.”—Lucas Mann, San Francisco Chronicle

"Piercing...a tour de force."—David Ulin,Los Angeles Times

"Intense, painful, and beautifully rendered...The story is built like a labyrinth. Memories and experiences are pathways leading into and out of others, deftly moving the reader forward and back in time...That David cuts himself no slack, and boldly, unflinchingly tells his own faulty story is remarkable."—Patricia Ann McNair, Washington Independent Review of Books

"A superhonest, affecting personal narrative; Payne writes about his childhood, his parents, and his career with a novelists sensitivity to detail."—GQ.com

“... [a] masterpiece of nonfiction... From the first page, Paynes evocative, often poetic prose will put you under its spell... it will be the rare reader who does not see something of his or her own experiences in this perceptive, beautiful and passionate memoir.”—Linda C. Brinson, Greensboro News and Record

“... stylistic bravura... what gives these biographical particulars their existential wallop is Paynes raw, sustained intensity. Reading Payne can feel like a near-physical experience, of being swept along by sinister forces that in different ages have gone by such names as original sin, melancholia, madness, and most recently, brain chemistry.”—John Murawski, News and Observer

“A memoir as raw, intimate and courageous as a series of midnight confessions fueled by a bottle of vodka... [Payne's] barefoot journey, every brave and bloody step over broken glass, shows how even the darkest emotions and deepest wounds can yield to love.”—Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Payne explores his family and all its troubled relationships and history, striking universal notes that will hit you where you live... Not since William Styrons 1951 debut novel “Lie Down in Darkness” has there been a more eloquent, courageous depiction.”—The Winston-Salem Journal

“Powerful, gripping, raw and tender.”—The News and Observer

“David Payne goes to the bone in his deeply felt Barefoot to Avalon”—Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair

“Riveting family history [asks] complex questions about social prestige, mental health, and the ties that bind...powerful.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Moving...there's a novelistic intensity to the story, with Payne dwelling on vivid recollected scenes, recreating their atmospherics and teasing out every buried emotional tremor and element of foreshadowing, but his prose also has the rawness of a confessional...Writing with a mixture of clear-eyed realism and lyrical elegy, Payne shows how a family's pain, resentment, and loss get transmuted into love."—Publishers Weekly

“Barefoot to Avalon is simply magnificent. The book has the feeling of nothing at all reserved, a kind of go for broke passion. In this complete commitment it steps across a normal threshold between reader and book. It has because of this a powerful healing effect of a very strange, unusual kind. Reading it has been a huge experience.”—Suzannah Lessard

“Barefoot to Avalon is one of the most powerful and penetrating memoirs Ive ever read; it is fiercely honest, deeply engaging, and utterly heartbreaking.”—Jay McInerney

“The tangled ties of adult siblings are one of the most underexplored themes in literature. In Barefoot to Avalon, David Payne transforms the story of a brothers death into a potent and heartbreaking meditation on love and loss and the long climb out of grief.”—Jenny Offil

“An elegy to a brother that plumbs depths beyond depths — a fever-dream of a memoir, a blazing map of familial love and loss, headlong and heartbreaking and gorgeously written.”—James Kaplan

"A major achievement and a whole new standard for memoir—Barefoot to Avalon is brave and brilliant, deep and true. Payne has tried to get the whole universe on the head of a pin, and done a fine job of it."—Lee Smith

“A brothers tragic death is at the heart of this memoir, but David Payne transcends the troubled relationship between his brother and himself to achieve something more—a compelling study of the inextricable link between the families we are born into and those that we try to create. Barefoot to Avalon is clear-eyed and unsentimental, which makes it all the more powerful and, ultimately, unforgettable.”—Ron Rash

Praise for David Payne

“[Payne has] the makings of a young Charles Dickens—a consummate storyteller in love with language and all the variations of life, people, and improbable situations.” —Business Week

“[Payne] writes of a people and a place from deep in his heart. He knows the hopes, fears and habits of his characters, and weaves a powerful, lyrical story that is a joy to read.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Some of the strongest, most demanding writing to be found in American fiction today.”—Los Angeles Times

“Wildly readable.”—Washington Post

“A master stylist, Payne breathes life into his material, cloaking it in rich, evocative prose.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“I marvel at Paynes virtuosity, his technical brilliance, his enormous ambition. Take a tip: his stock is bound to rise.”—Dallas Morning News

“[Payne] burns as brightly as any writer of his generation.”—Pat Conroy

“David Payne is a writer whom readers take personally, a novelist who speaks to their lives, whose books become part of their experience…Payne sees and hears the human reality in every situation…Payne sees his characters for who they are, accepts them, loves them, and joins their voices in a hymn of life.”—Boston Globe

“Payne is irresistible.”—The State

"Piercing...a tour de force."--Los Angeles Times

In 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle, fishtailed, flipped over in the road, and died instantly. Soon thereafter, David's life hit a downward spiral. His career came to a standstill, his marriage disintegrated, and his drinking went from a cocktail-hour indulgence to a full-blown addiction. He found himself haunted not only by George A.'s death, but also by his brother's manic depression, a hereditary illness that overlaid a dark family history whose roots now gripped David.

Barefoot to Avalon is Payne's earnest and unflinching account of George A. and their boyhood footrace that lasted long into their adulthood, defining their relationship and their lives. As universal as it is intimate, this is an exceptional memoir of brotherhood, of sibling rivalries and sibling love, and of the torments a family can hold silent and carry across generations.