Join us for a reading Sunday, October 20th at 2:00pm with musician and author Richard Hood to talk about his new book Regret the Dark Hour. 

About the Book

When Nole Darlen kills his father, the single resounding gunshot sets up a dark patchwork of memory and expectation that gathers-up townspeople, hill-folks, lovers and outlaws. Here is a tangled tale involving the dead man’s wife, his neighbor, a desperado, and a grizzled muskrat-trapper.

Central to the story is a pistol that Nole Darlen has taken from a card game the night before the murder. The pistol becomes a totem to Nole, an embodiment of the frustrations and failures that have dogged his life. He envies and fears the outlaw, Jem Craishot, wishing he, too, could be “fearsome,” but descends, instead, into cowardice and betrayal. Eventually, the gun becomes a central element of the novel’s twisted story, a talisman of murder, and a key to the book’s shocking ending.

The novel has been called “Southern Gothic Noir,” and Hood describes it as an “anti-mystery.” There is never any doubt about who killed Carl Darlen, but the story turns and weaves through the day of the murder and ends with a startling, dark, surprise.

Here is a story of family violence—its simmering causes and smoldering consequences—set against the clashing tensions of old-and-new, fiddle-tunes and factories, among the hills and coves of prohibition-era East Tennessee.

About the Author

Richard Hood is a musician, photographer, and writer, living in Greene County, Tennessee.