Ficton Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1-932961-26-7 / ISBN 13: 978-1-932961-26-3
6 x 9 / 304 Pages / $24.95 / October 2006
Ficton Paperback
ISBN 13: 978-1-932961-44-7
6 x 9 / 287 Pages / $14.95 / October 2007
Summary | Praise | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Widgets | Bio | Events
In this lithely told and atmospheric story, a fishing village on the Gulf Coast loses its bearings as its shrimping industry begins to fail. The town of Goodnight by the Sea lies on a peninsula between two bays, Red Moon and Humosa, and for years its people, many of them immigrants drawn to this ragged edge of America, have struggled to get by. When Gabriel Perez, a local shrimper, gets laid off, he also manages to lose his girlfriend, Una Vu, a beautiful Vietnamese-Hispanic waitress who is unhappy with both the smallness of her life and Gabriel’s petty anger. Gabriel blames Falk Powell, a teenage co-worker of Una’s, for stealing her heart and begins plotting a revenge that will take an unexpected turn. Gusef, their unlikely Russian entrepreneur employer, takes young Falk under his wing. All the while, an impending hurricane gathers ominously in the Gulf.
Goodnight, Texas is a poignant, powerful, comic, surprisingly hopeful story about a love affair within the beauty of a decaying bayside village, about wanting what you cannot have, and about what happens when a coastal Texas town is swamped by a killer hurricane. Cobb has written a timely vision of resilience and personal survival amidst the collapse of small town American life.
A Pulpwood Queens Book Club bonus selection and October 2006 Book Sense Pick!
A Best of 2006 pick by The Austin Chronicle!
“Cobb (The Fire Eaters) deals with the underlying issues of the destructiveness of nature and the ultimate redemption of humankind. Superbly written, dark and amusing, Cobb’s portrait of this small town on the edge of disaster will stay with one long after the last page is turned. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal, starred review
“It’s a gratifying thing to see a writer put warmth, lyricism, love of place, and a deeply observant naturalism to use as beautifully as William Cobb does in “Goodnight, Texas.” The result, for me anyway, was to a renewed love of the things and people of this world—a working definition of a wonderful book.” —George Saunders
“I don’t know where William J. Cobb hangs out, but wherever that is he doesn’t miss much. GOODNIGHT, TEXAS is full of sharply drawn, firmly created characters who come vibrantly alive in a ramshackle fishing village, with small, salty waves, a wide, watery vista, and a magically huge fish rotting on the shore. Cobb writes with surprising and wonderful insight into all sorts of folks, with concision and grace, in a voice rich with compassion, but no mush at all.” —Daniel Woodrell
"Cobb is not only a jeweler of phrasing and plotting, he knows how to give life to our characters."—RALPH
“I really enjoyed this book! Sometimes funny, often sad – these are real people trying to make their lives “work” in the worst of circumstances! The hurricane chapters are descriptive and moving and add another dimension to the story. I think it’s very well written – Cobb paints pictures (and smells!) with his words. This book will be easy to recommend to our readers.” —Pam White, Skyland Books (NC)
“Goodnight, Texas is a dried-up fishing village crumbling into the Gulf, like a dying American dream. But the people here are not yet defeated, and their mild lives are expressed with great poetic empathy by a soulful observer. The novel is heavy with inevitability—of sex, violence and natural disaster—and then all hell breaks loose. Cobb does not fail to deliver, and in ways you did not expect.” —Jamie Kornegay, Turnrow Books (MS)
“I was transported . . . Well paced, funny, and redemptive, the characters were completely engaging.” —Valerie Koehler, Blue Willow Books (TX)
“Thoroughly enjoyed it. Cobb captured the desperateness of a dying town expertly and surprisingly in a unique and amusing way. I saw my neighbors in his characters.” —Julie Green, Front Street Books (TX)
"Cobb has written a novel that attempts to capture the changes small towns across American are experiencing in the 21st century, and how these cultural and economic shifts affect the citizens. In Goodnight, Texas, he meets success." —Winston-Salem Journal
“Quirky and likable…charming.” —Texas Monthly
“Goodnight, Texas is a dried-up fishing village crumbling into the Gulf, like a dying American dream. But the people here are not yet defeated, and their mild lives are expressed with great poetic empathy by a soulful observer. The novel is heavy with inevitability—of sex, violence and natural disaster—and then all hell breaks loose. Cobb does not fail to deliver, and in ways you did not expect.” —Jamie Kornegay, Turnrow Books (MS)
William J. Cobb is the author of a previous novel, The Fire Eaters, and a book of stories,
The White Tattoo. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and in many other journals. He has received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, the Sandstone Prize, and an AWP Award for the Novel. He was raised in Texas, and currently lives in Pennsylvania and Colorado. He directs the writing program at Penn State.
Unbridled Aloud featuring William Cobb
Click here to read the full first chapter!
As the wind shrieked and shook the Sea Horse, Falk and Una curled against each other on the bed, barefoot. Una was still cold. They hugged each other and tried to warm themselves by lying close beneath the motel’s bedspread and sheets.
Una closed her eyes and curled against Falk. Warm me up, she said. Please please please. I’m so cold. Feel me. I can’t quit shaking.
Shhhhh. It’ll be alright. Don’t worry. He smelled her hair and squeezed her so close their bones crumpled against each other.
The light in the room was the deep blue color of shadows in closets in which something important, perhaps life shattering, is hidden in a shoebox. The battened-down motel room smelled of must and mildew and the tang and musk of the storm itself, of salt water whipped into a fine mist by the wind, blasted through the cracks in doors and windows.
The wind shook the building and squealed as it whistled through these cracks and gaps. Falk and Una shivered and trembled, hunkering under the thin tropical motel bedspread. Outside came the sounds of things breaking, cracking, splintering, dull concussions and watery thuds.
We should pretend this isn’t happening, whispered Una. We should pretend that everything will be okay.
Falk closed his eyes and listened. He kissed the hollow of her slim and salty neck. Their body heat suffused the pocket of sheets and blankets after some time so that they felt enclosed in a delirious, blood-warm cocoon. Una unzipped the side of her dress and guided Falk’s hand to her center so hot it felt as if he were blindly touching the lips of a torch. Falk was swollen and feverish and Una brought his lips to her nipple, kissing his eyelids, telling him, Warmer. You are so warm.
They grew entangled in her loosened dress. Una broke away from a kiss and tried to calm Falk’s squirming body. Maybe I should take this thing off.
Falk gulped for breath and nodded. He had lost the ability to speak.
Beside the bed, she squirmed out of the rumpled square dance outfit, her figure standing there suffused with the room’s blue velvet light. She made a face he could faintly see, a comical frown. I hate that thing. Wriggling out of its puffy sleeves and frilly-necked bodice, she let it fall to the carpeted floor, kicked it away.
Streaks of watery light coated the curves of her hips, the softness of her belly, the half-moons of her small breasts. She stood for a half instant, her long black hair over one shoulder and hanging forward, like a ceramic sea nymph in an aquarium’s blue glow. Behind her crisscrossed the patterns of the taped windows, the curtains pulled open, the wood trembling in the blasts of wind, the rough tan hide of nailed plywood buckling and heaving.