Second Sight

Step into Compton County, Randall Ivey’s unforgettable corner of the South Carolina upcountry, where faith, longing, eccentricity, and heartbreak collide in stories as sharp as they are deeply human.

Originally published as A New England Romance and Other Southern Stories (2016), this classic collection gathers the vivid tales that helped establish Ivey’s richly imagined Compton County—a companion landscape to his 2024 collection, The Gift of Gab. Here readers meet an eleven-year-old minister and faith-healer, Reverend Benny Troy Hoyt; the bookish, idealistic Jane Poage, who falls for a handsome New England thespian; and Mrs. Stratton, a peculiar but misunderstood Yankee high school chorus teacher whose presence unsettles those around her.

Shocking, entertaining, tender, and haunting by turns, Ivey’s stories invite readers into a fictional Southern county worthy of standing beside Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha and James Kibler’s Clay Bank County. If you love literary Southern fiction filled with unforgettable voices and places that feel real enough to visit, add Randall Ivey’s Compton County to your reading itinerary today!

A preview link can be found here.