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Sheldon Lee Compton

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Sheldon Lee Compton

Goodreads Author


Born
in Pikeville, Kentucky, The United States
Website

Twitter

Genre

Influences
Breece D'J Pancake, Townes Van Zandt, Leo Tolstoy, G.C. Compton, Micha ...more

Member Since
April 2009


Sheldon Lee Compton is a short story writer, novelist, prose poet, and editor from Pike County, Eastern Kentucky.

He is the author of the short story collections The Same Terrible Storm (Foxhead Books, 2012), Where Alligators Sleep (Foxhead Books, 2014), Absolute Invention (Secret History Books, 2019) and Sway (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2020).

Compton is also the author of the novels Brown Bottle (Bottom Dog Press, 2016) and Dysphoria (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2019).

His poetry chapbook Podunk Lore was part of the Lantern Lit series (Dog On a Chain Press, 2018) and his first full-length poetry collection, Runaways, was published in 2021 by Alien Buddha Press.

Compton's novel, Alice, was named one of the Best Books of 2023 as selected by the Independ
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Sheldon Lee Compton Hey thanks very much Brian! I hope you like it and leave some comments here if you want.
Sheldon Lee Compton Right now I'm working my way through Italo Calvino's work, so that'll probably take up a lot of my summer reading time. But I'm also hoping to read mo…moreRight now I'm working my way through Italo Calvino's work, so that'll probably take up a lot of my summer reading time. But I'm also hoping to read more of Anne Carson's work. And more poetry.(less)
Average rating: 4.3 · 490 ratings · 118 reviews · 28 distinct worksSimilar authors
Brown Bottle

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 47 ratings2 editions
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The Same Terrible Storm

4.54 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions
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Dysphoria: an Appalachian g...

3.70 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editions
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Where Alligators Sleep

4.50 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2014 — 5 editions
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Wrong Tree Review issue 1

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4.75 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2010
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The Orchard Is Full of Soun...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 11 ratings
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SWAY: Stories

4.56 avg rating — 9 ratings
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The Collected Stories

4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings2 editions
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A True Story: A Novella

4.57 avg rating — 7 ratings2 editions
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Oblivion Angels: a novel

4.50 avg rating — 6 ratings2 editions
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More books by Sheldon Lee Compton…

My new short story collection ABSOLUTE INVENTION is out now and available from Secret History Books

It’s another story collection, my favorite kind of book all the way around.


My most recent book is the collection Absolute Invention. It falls along the same lines as my previous collection Where Alligators Sleep. Some fantastic stories, some surreal, some spending time in the realm of fabulism.


The book was published this spring by Secret History Books, a press headed up by the one and only Mike La

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Published on June 21, 2019 05:57
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Quotes by Sheldon Lee Compton  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“He's on the school bus and Uncle Wade is standing outside the window. The bus hasn't pulled out yet and Uncle Wade is punching the air and ducking his head and giving him a thumbs up sign and then a big smile. The big smile says do not worry. It says you can do this. ... His smile says a lot and so do his punching hands and his hooked thumbs, and before everything else it can possibly say, it says the thing Nick needs most. The big smile says I love you.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

“There were a lot of botched kills throughout the eastern part of Kentucky when the work fell outside his control. Six or seven years ago, a man from Perry County was shot point blank in the head and left for dead in the middle of downtown. Problem was, the bullet had traveled between the man's scalp and his skull halfway across his head and exited the same way it had entered on the other side. The whole thing had left him with only fingernail-sized contusions on both sides of his head. He identified the guy who shot him and saw him arrested and convicted of attempted murder.
Now, it's true that a situation like that was a rare one, but part of doing a job right was minimizing the chance for something to go wrong.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

“Tuck had always been made smaller made than Stan. Narrow shoulders, tiny hands and short fingers. Even as a young man his brown eyes were always watering like he'd been crying and his face never took hair well. What he had instead were four or five patches of hair that looked like a cluster of bee stingers popping straight out from his cheeks.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

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“the tigers have found me
and I do not care.”
Charles Bukowski

“Brown pulled the bag closer to his side. He had nothing but good memories from his time overseas. That's the truth nobody knew. Since coming home he'd been labeled a baby-killer and a murderer, and things had been bad enough for him and his family when he went into the military.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

“There were a lot of botched kills throughout the eastern part of Kentucky when the work fell outside his control. Six or seven years ago, a man from Perry County was shot point blank in the head and left for dead in the middle of downtown. Problem was, the bullet had traveled between the man's scalp and his skull halfway across his head and exited the same way it had entered on the other side. The whole thing had left him with only fingernail-sized contusions on both sides of his head. He identified the guy who shot him and saw him arrested and convicted of attempted murder.
Now, it's true that a situation like that was a rare one, but part of doing a job right was minimizing the chance for something to go wrong.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

“He's on the school bus and Uncle Wade is standing outside the window. The bus hasn't pulled out yet and Uncle Wade is punching the air and ducking his head and giving him a thumbs up sign and then a big smile. The big smile says do not worry. It says you can do this. ... His smile says a lot and so do his punching hands and his hooked thumbs, and before everything else it can possibly say, it says the thing Nick needs most. The big smile says I love you.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

“Tuck had always been made smaller made than Stan. Narrow shoulders, tiny hands and short fingers. Even as a young man his brown eyes were always watering like he'd been crying and his face never took hair well. What he had instead were four or five patches of hair that looked like a cluster of bee stingers popping straight out from his cheeks.”
Sheldon Lee Compton, Brown Bottle

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