Ill Wind

by William L. Heath

Charley Mott's suicide, after twenty-five years of residence in Morgan, forces the townspeople to reexamine their lives

Genres: Crime, Noir, Fiction

275 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1985

About the author

William L. Heath was born in Louisiana, but grew up in North Alabama in the small town of Scottsboro. He was raised by aunts and uncles who owned a mill; the combination of blue collar experience and a small southern town served as the eloquent background of many of his novels and short stories--like Max the Great, the Earthquake Man, Ill Wind, Violent Saturday, Blood on the River, and The Good Old Boys.

William L. Heath, known by his friends as Bill, wrote 13 novels and 36 short stories. Most Valuable Player was featured in grammar books as an exemplary Southern fiction short story. Violent Saturday was purchased by 20th Century Fox in 1955, and was made into a full-length movie starring Victor Mature, Sylvia Sydney, and Ernest Borgnine.

W.L. Heath attended Baylor Prep School and University of Virginia. He served as President of the Sigma Chi chapter at UVA before and after his service in the War. He was married to Mary Ann Stahler Heath for 30 years before her untimely death. Three sons--Will Carrington Heath, Warne Stahler Heath, and Merrill Louis Heath--four grandchildren and one great-grandchild survive his recent death.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heath’s second book, “Ill Wind,” is a remarkable short paperback about a small Southern town rocked by a gun accident or suicide attempt by the town tax collector in his office. As he lingers in the hospital, unconscious but still alive, barely, the town gossip mill plays out. The plot of this short novel can be summed up in a sentence or two, but the literary magic is in the characters brought to life in a town moving at a slow pace.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

W.L. Heath returns to the town of Morgan, Alabama, the scene of his brilliantly-executed novel VIOLENT SATURDAY, for another look at small-town rural life. Though an act of violence is also at the center of this story, ILL WIND is not a crime novel as VIOLENT SATURDAY partly was. Both books, however, are blessed with Heath's gently poetic descriptiveness and his real insight into the small-town mind. Whereas VIOLENT SATURDAY had as its initiating factor a bank robbery, ILL WIND does not have something quite so generically compelling. Yet it manages a fine sense of suspense, without really being what's thought of as a suspense novel. At the beginning of the story, well-liked civil servant Charlie Mott shoots himself, either accidentally or on purpose, in his office. He doesn't die immediately but is left in a coma. The social, political, and cultural ramifications of the shooting, and the vigorous debate (and gossip) about whether it was intentional or accidental, turn the town on its ear, and force several citizens to face just what kind of people they actually are, and what kind they want to be. Heath is an uncommonly fine writer, one whose work is unjustly forgotten. ILL WIND, by nature of its less melodramatic core, is not quite as exciting as VIOLENT SATURDAY, but it compels the reader forward and illuminates a certain branch of society wonderfully and with subtlety and grace.