Winter Birds. A Novel.

First edition in English. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 209pp. Quarter-bound black linen over claret paper-covered boards, lettered in gilt to spine; crimson endpapers. Jacket design by Molly Renda, with rear panel praise from Horton Foote, Dorothy Allison, et al.

Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Originally published in the German translation under the title Wintervögel, by Edition diá Verlag & Vertrieb AG, Berlin, in 1992, as the book was repeatedly rejected by American publishers for being "too dark". The French publication followed in 1994 under the title Les oiseaux de l'hiver, winner of the Prix Charles Brisset award, and the first time the prize had gone to a non-French writer.

Playwright's dark, semi-autobiographical first novel, set in his native North Carolina. The story of a dreamy eight-year-old pushed headlong into the adult world by a violent quarrel between his parents. In an essay about his writing, entitled "True Fiction," Grimsley asserts, "I have vivid memories of my family, of the way we lived, and [these] memories are often very unpleasant and lead to stories that are cathartic to read, but hard to sell to publishers." "Remarkable. [T]he story hits you in the gut." –Michael Skube, (Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic)