David

Joy

Award Winning Novelist

Writer & Memoirist

Travels from: Charlotte, NC

“[David Joy] is a man who sees his homeplace clearly and who writes like his hand was touched by God.” — The New York Times

A twelfth generation North Carolinian, David Joy grew up in the Piedmont along the Catawba River, moved away at eighteen, and has spent the last 22 years 100 miles west in the mountains of Jackson County. His work is place-driven and deeply rooted to Appalachia, and has been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel was adapted to film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright.

Joy is the author of five novels, including Those We Thought We Knew (winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award and the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize), When These Mountains Burn (winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award), The Line That Held Us (winner of the 2018 Southern Book Prize), The Weight of This World, and Where All Light Tends to Go (Edgar finalist for Best First Novel). His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, most recently Garden & Gun, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME. He is also the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey and a coeditor of Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing, a book he spearheaded to raise money for the CAST For Kids Foundation.

Joy lives in Tuckasegee, North Carolina with his dog Edie Munster.

David's Featured Titles

Those We Thought We Knew

G.P. Putnam’s Sons |

August 1, 2023

Literary Fiction

Winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
Winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award

One of Vanity Fair’s Favorite Books of 2023

“A beautifully fearless contemplation.” –S. A. Cosby

From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.

Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger.

Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man’s vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the Klan, and the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end.

After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?

American South / Appalachia, Fiction, Mystery & Thriller

When These Mountains Burn

Welbeck Publishing |

October 29, 2020

Southern Fiction

Acclaimed author David Joy returns with a fierce and tender tale of a father, an addict, a lawman and the explosive events that come to unite them.

When his addict son gets in deep with his dealer, it takes everything Raymond Mathis has to bail him out of trouble one last time. Frustrated by the slow pace and limitations of the law, Raymond decides to take matters into his own hands.

After a workplace accident left him out of a job and in pain, Denny Rattler has spent years chasing his next high. He supports his habit through careful theft, following strict rules that keep him under the radar and out of jail. But when faced with opportunities too easy to resist, Denny makes two choices that change everything.

For months, the DEA has been chasing the drug supply in the mountains to no avail, when a lead – just one word – sets one agent on a path to crack the case open… but he’ll need help from the most unexpected quarter.

As chance brings together these men from different sides of a relentless epidemic, each may come to find that his opportunity for redemption lies with the others.

American South / Appalachia, Fiction, Mystery & Thriller

The Line That Held Us

G.P. Putnam’s Sons |

August 14, 2018

Literary Fiction

From critically acclaimed author David Joy comes a remarkable novel about the cover-up of an accidental death, and the dark consequences that reverberate through the lives of four people who will never be the same again.

When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck he’s chased for years, he never expected he’d accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he’s killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence. With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer, his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But when Dwayne Brewer comes looking for his missing brother and stumbles onto a blood trail leading straight back to Darl and Calvin, a nightmare of revenge rips apart their world. The Line That Held Us is a story of friendship and family, a tale balanced between destruction and redemption, where the only hope is to hold on tight, clenching to those you love. What will you do for the people who mean the most, and what will you grasp to when all that you have is gone? The only certainty in a place so shredded is that no one will get away unscathed.

American South / Appalachia, Fiction, Mystery & Thriller

Complicating the Narrative of Appalachia and an Evolving American South

Appalachia and the American South both have very long and lasting literary histories. From names like Faulkner and O’Connor, to the lasting impact of Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel, there is a time honored tradition of rich and celebrated storytelling. Despite this tradition, for a very long time these types of stories portrayed a very particular, and very White reality of these places. If I were to ask someone outside of Appalachia to describe what someone from this region looked like, they’d likely describe someone who looked like me: a White man with a beard, likely wearing overalls. No stage had been given to Indigenous writers. Realities such as Black Appalachia were virtually nonexistent, and most assuredly not represented by the canon. All of this has begun to change over the last few decades as big publishing has broadened the stage and new voices have worked to complicate the long-held narratives. From writers like Crystal Wilkinson, Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr., Annette Saunook Clapsaddle, Neema Avashia, suddenly there are brilliant writers bringing light to what has always been here but has historically been dismissed, downplayed, or ignored. In this talk, we’ll discuss the importance of these narratives, the importance of inclusion, and what we stand to gain by repainting the landscape to fully celebrate the diversity of this place we call home.

Giving Voice to the Silenced: Representation in Working Class Literature

One of the most empowering moments in Joy’s life as a writer came in college when a professor handed him a copy of William Gay’s story collection, I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down. He recalls that being the first time he, “realized you could write a story about those people—my people—and that you could do it that well.” Since then he has dedicated a career to writing the stories of his people. As he wrote in an essay for The Bitter Southerner, “The kids I grew up with came to know truths that don’t reach most people until they’re adults if they ever reach them at all. There’s a poem by one of my favorite writers, the Kentucky poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, titled “My Mother Told Us Not To Have Children,” and in that poem she has a line where she asks, “Is gentleness a resource of the privileged?” She answers, “In this respect, my people were poor. / We fought to eat and fought each other because // we were tired from fighting. We had no time / to share. Instead our estate was honesty, // which is not tenderness.” And maybe that’s all I’ve ever really known: honesty. Maybe that’s all any of us knew.”

Writing Across Gaps from Place, Race, to Gender

Whether setting a story in Paris having only ever shortly visited or choosing to write a male protagonist as a female writer, as writers we are constantly writing across gaps. In a time where terms like “cancel culture” and “sensitivity reads” get tossed around, and many writers voice censorship concerns, it is increasingly important to recognize that some gaps involve historical power and risk both appropriation and perpetuating dangerous stereotypes. The question is never, can a writer do this? The writer can make any choice they wish. But they must also come to recognize that mistakes with regards to these types of gaps are never inconsequential. Whether writing across a gap of place, race, class, sexuality, or gender, the central question should always be, when crossing this gap do I carry a position of power?

As Joy explained in an interview with writer Russell Worth Parker, “the truth is that the gaps are just…they’re more major for me and you and they always will be. And that’s not a ‘poor pitiful me’ thing to say, the reason that those gaps are larger is because there is not a gap that we can cross that does not involve power. Any gap I cross involves power. If I cross gender, I have power. If I cross-race, I most assuredly have power. If I cross sexuality, I have power. As a white cis man, the consequences of getting it wrong are just bigger and it’s because they’re dangerous. So, I hear this all the time, people are like, ‘Why can’t I write Black characters, you got Black writers writing White characters?’ And sure, again, the difference is power. Me as a White man getting a Black woman wrong is more consequential than Shawn Cosby, who’s a writer I love, as a Black man getting a White man wrong because he’s not operating from a place of power. It can’t carry the same consequence.”

In this talk, we’ll discuss questions that writers can ask in order to more safely navigate crossing these gaps when a story necessitates that decision.

Clinging to Cultural Identity and The Role of Literature as Time Capsule

Joy’s first ancestor to come into North Carolina moved south out of Virginia in the late 1600s into what would become Bertie County. He is a son of the South, but more exactly he is a son of The Old North State. The place he grew up, however, is a place that he cannot go back to. The pastures are gone. The wood lots are leveled. The houses have been erased and replaced by warehouses and sorting facilities. As Gertrude Stein once said of where she’d grown up, “There is no there there.”

Much of Joy’s work is focused on cultural erasure. He has said that he believes the North Carolina mountains are a generation away from cultural extinction. He has stated time and time again that his greatest fear is homogeny. In an interview with Salvation South, Joy explained, “I grew up in Moore’s Chapel. My father grew up in Paw Creek. I think he made it about five miles down the road in total. But all of my paternal family is from right there. Paw Creek, Moore’s Chapel, Berryhill, Steele Creek. And those are names that still exist on signs, but that’s it…It’s a hard thing to describe, primarily because it’s something that disappeared so rapidly. I grew up to a rural people who were swallowed by a city. I grew up a mile or so down the road from an uncle who kept rabbit dogs. I grew up running through a cattle pasture every day to fish a small farm pond for bream and bass and crappie and catfish. I grew up riding around with a grandmother who pointed to fields where she’d worked cotton and tobacco as a child, who pointed to all of the houses her father and brothers had built.

“As for the cultural extinction that accompanies the disappearance and erasure of place, that’s what keeps me up at night. It’s like I wrote at the end of When These Mountains Burn, ‘Now everyone was sitting around watching the last of it flicker like a sunset with eyes blind and minds dumb to the fact that when the night finally came there would come no light again. The very nature of things demanded that there would come a moment in history when hopefulness would equate to naivety, when the situation would have become too dire for saving. Raymond knew this, and it was that final thought that had left his heart in ruins.’”

So how does literature come to serve as preservation? Will there come a time when what’s on the page is the only proof of the gone and the going away?

Shifting Perspectives Toward Sensible Gun Reform

An avid hunter and gun owner, Joy has written at length about the issues surrounding American gun law and the need for sensible reform for outlets such as The New York Times Magazine. He has spoken on Brady United’s “Red, Blue & Brady” podcast as well as on conference panels with gun violence survivors and spokespeople for the NRA. Joy’s unique perspective centers on having been raised with and around firearms, but acknowledging a need for and pushing toward sensible gun laws. From recognizing a post-9/11 militarization of gun culture to the perversion of liberty as an untethered Second Amendment, Joy has a keen insight of America’s historical relationship with guns, how we reached the point where we are, and how we might move toward someplace safer for future generations.

“David Joy lectured at the Alma MFA’s 2025 winter residency in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, and also served as our degree ceremony speaker. The students and faculty couldn’t stop talking about him. He demonstrated what it means to live a truly authentic life, and to write with intention from that authenticity. They felt challenged to find their own way to live and write from such a powerful foundation. He spoke lovingly of growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, and why the location plays such an important role in his work, even when he’s telling difficult stories. I highly recommend David for any community looking to engage in conversations that will inspire and enlighten. He’s a sweet, funny presence (yes, you’ll laugh a lot!) who will bring a beautiful energy to any room.” — Sophfronia Scott, Director, Alma MFA in Creative Writing, 2025

“Of the dozens of speakers I hosted over the seven years of a speaker series at the University of Delaware, David Joy is only one of two speakers I invited back. And if I had the opportunity, I would invite him back again! He provided thoughtful, genuine observations on topics related to race in America, Appalachia, politics, writing, and much more. He was as engaging in the classroom as he was at public events. He is, in many ways, a dream speaker because he actually listens to the questions and conversation being had, and thinks deeply when engaging in the dialogue. He is also funny, kind, and inspirational to be around.” — University of Delaware, 2024

“[David] Joy writes like his hand was touched by God.” — The New York Times

“Unflinching and timely…Joy has mastered the high-stakes, page-turning Appalachian-noir style, and through this lens, the preconceived notions of life in the mountains are overturned.” — Christian Science Monitor on Those We Thought We Knew

“Outstanding. . . When These Mountains Burn is a crime novel, surely – and a damn good one – but it’s also a snapshot of small-town America at a fracture point, when the least of the concerns is the fire that could consume everyone, all at once.” — USA Today on When These Mountains Burn

“A suspenseful page-turner, complete with one of the absolutely killer endings that have become one of Joy’s signatures.” — Los Angeles Times on The Line That Held Us

“Exquisitely written, heart-wrenching . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering.” — Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“David Joy’s novel brought me to my knees. Exquisitely written and heart-wrenching, it reminded me of Faulkner in its dark depiction of family loyalty — that “old fierce pull of blood.” . . . Joy’s descriptions are lyrical and lingering. . . . In the end, the line that holds Joy’s characters may be fraught and frayed, but its pull is fierce.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Darkly stunning Appalachian noir.” — Huffington Post

“[A] remarkable first novel . . . This isn’t your ordinary coming-of-age novel, but with his bone-cutting insights into these men and the region that bred them, Joy makes it an extraordinarily intimate experience.” — Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review on Where All Light Tends To Go

Coming Soon!

Honors, Awards & Recognition

2023 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction for Those We Thought We Knew
2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award for Those We Thought We Knew
2020 Dashiell Hammett Prize for When These Mountains Burn
2019 Southern Book Prize for The Line That Held Us
2019 St. Francis Literary Prize Finalist for The Line That Held Us
2018 Ragan-Rubin Award for Literary Achievement from the NC English Teachers Association (NCETA)
2018 Tillie Olsen Award from the Working Class Studies Association (WCSA) for The Weight Of This World
2017 Longlist for International DUBLIN Literary Award
2016 Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel