Fate Moreland's Widow

"John Lane has long been recognized as one of the South's finest poets and memoirists. This debut establishes him as one of our finest novelists as well. His poet's eye for detail seamlessly merges with a born storyteller's gift for narrative. Fate Moreland's Widow gives voice to those who endured one of the most painful and neglected chapters in American history."—Ron Rash

"The literature of the southern mill village has been underdone and this magnificent novel adds greatly to it. What John Lane does better than anyone I have read is explore the interrelatedness of both the mill worker and the mill owner, trapped by the desires and abuses of unchecked power. Their symbiosis is opaque and troublesome. In the widow Novie Moreland, John has crafted a masterfully nuanced new symbol of male obsession and female resilience poised to become the Circe of the Carolina foothills."—Pat Conroy

"Ben Crocker is a sympathetic but sharp-eyed protagonist, torn by his loyalty to his family and mill workers on one hand and on the other, his ambition and opportunity to work for the powerful McCanes. John Lane weaves in descriptions of the mill, the town, and the McCane family's fiefdom, with rich character dynamics and a compelling plot. Whether it's the German hired to drag the lake, the palpable tension in the courtroom scene, or the Baptist funeral, John has captured the sense of place that brings to mind the fiction of Ron Rash and Robert Morgan. This is a story that needs to be told and that deserves to be read."—Mindy Friddle

"Fate Moreland's Widow, the haunting first novel from award-winning poet, environmentalist, and story-teller John Lane, delves into historically inspired events of life, livelihood, death, and destiny against a rural southern backdrop on the cusp of modernity."—Idgie, Dew on the Kudzu

"Lane's prose is faultless; the pacing, superb: the dialogue rings true. If you enjoy fiction that brings complicated historical struggles to life, you'll love this novel. -"—Donna Meredith, Southern Literary Review

"John Lane deftly captures the hardscrabble plight of the southern mill worker and the ambitious greed of the southern mill owner in Fate Moreland's Widow. But he does an even better job of capturing the quandary of Ben Crocker, the man precariously stuck in the middle."—Wiley Cash, from the foreword

"John Lane has written a crackerjack page-turner that brings the whole violent and complicated struggle of the southern textile mills to brilliant, blazing life. Narrator Ben Crocker is a man caught between two worlds: the poverty of his own childhood spent among hill people and millworkers versus the prosperity and social status attached to his job as accountant for a big mill owner. When murder brings these two worlds into direct collision, Crocker finds himself the point man. I couldn't put this book down. Fate Moreland's Widow is part mystery, part sociology, part love story, with the best kind of surprising twist at the end—I admit I never saw it coming, though now it seems inevitable."—Lee Smith, author of New York Times best seller The Last Girls

"In this engaging first novel by acclaimed nature writer John Lane, self-proclaimed company man Ben Crocker tells his story, as the overworked, underpaid flunky of a 1930's textile mogul in the Carolina Blue Ridge foothills. The unlovable boss man and his big cruiser have swamped a small boat on the company lake and drowned three people. Among the dead are the husband and child of gorgeous Novie Moreland, dream girl of half the countryside. The young Widow Moreland is nobody's fool, but nobody's paragon either, as smitten Ben must learn. Lane's cautionary tale of land, labor, love, and loyalty is as pertinent today as it was in its Depression era of mill uprisings and shootings."—Dot Jackson, author of Refuge

"John Lane has offered up a cracker jack Southern novel, peopled by interesting characters and anchored in an important time in the Carolinas' history.... Circling between important matters and fantasies that pleasure the secret self is an apt metaphor for the human condition. Few writers describe the dance better than John Lane has done in Fate Moreland's Widow."—Terry Plumb, Rock Hill SC Herald

2015 Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year, Finalist for Historical Fiction
2016 Independent Book Publisher Awards, Silver Medal for Southeast Regional Fiction
2016 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Great Santini Fiction Prize, Longlist Finalist