F*CKFACE

“Enthralling and rich…I urge you to pick up Leah Hampton’s F*ckface.”
–The Paris Review

Best Short Story Collections of 2020, ELECTRIC LIT

Finalist for the Weatherford and Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Awards

A brassy, bighearted debut collection of twelve short stories about rurality, heartbreak, honeybee collapse, and illicit sex in post-coal Appalachia.

Click to order from Indiebound, Bookshop.org, Amazon, and elsewhere. (Due to Covid-19 protocols, SIGNED copies are only available from City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC.)

“All knuckle-crackers… a gem of a collection.”
—Salon

“Dazzling… A marvelous introduction to a fresh Southern voice.”
–Kirkus (starred review)

“The prose in every story is as punchy as the plots. Hampton’s ability to render her characters with complex desires demonstrates her love for Appalachia and the people who live there.“
—Boston Globe

“Dazzling…In writing about an often misunderstood region, Hampton could easily have succumbed to the romanticism of Lee Smith or the negative stereotypes of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, but she avoids these tendencies with cleareyed honesty, humor, and compassion. A marvelous introduction to a fresh Southern voice.”
―Kirkus (starred)

“Gripping…Hampton brings the complex people and sweeping landscapes of the Blue Ridge Mountains to life…She writes with awe and admiration of the scenery of Kentucky and North Carolina, and with radical empathy for its inhabitants.”
―Booklist

“A piercing debut… Hampton’s stories predominantly feature intelligent women who live non-normative lives…Vibrant descriptions of the woodlands, the smoky mountains, and rural landscapes strengthen Hampton’s narratives and temper the bleak subjects she undertakes.”
―PopMatters

“F*ckface sure has grit―complemented by great compassion, wit, and ingenious connections between startlingly unrelated subjects…Leah Hampton really sees people. So this allows her, without any pretenses, to deliver a hell of a story.”
―Lit Hub (Most Anticipated List)

“Told with humor and heart.”
―The Millions (Most Anticipated List)

“Leah Hampton writes with an unflinching honesty that brings to mind the stories of Dorothy Alison, but Hampton’s subjects and voices are her own. No matter their circumstances or faults, she never condescends to her characters but always allows them their full humanity. F*ckfac­e is an outstanding debut, one that should gain her a wide and appreciative readership.”
 –Ron Rash, author of Serena

“Full of wry gallows humor and unexpected tenderness, F*ckface leaves me feeling hopeful about humanity. Hampton’s voice is dark, funny, smart, and wise: a perfect companion for the apocalypse.”
– Amy Bonnaffons, author of The Regrets

“What a visit this book is! A devastating, funny, poignant, unapologetic, astonishing collection. These stories of loss and landscape, hope, meat and Dolly Parton are an extraordinary hymn to Appalachia and announce a bold, brilliant, beautiful new voice. What an outstanding debut.”
—Edward Carey, author of Little and Observatory Mansions

“Hampton writes about Appalachia with such sharpness, such clear-eyed compassion. These stories are deceptively simple―a firefighter’s marriage dissolves, a woman meets an old classmate, a beloved coworker quits―until they are not. These stories take you apart slowly, piece by piece, and by the time you realise what’s happening, it’s already too late. The stories are in your blood now. They live in you, with all their strangeness and decay, isolation and comfort, hellscapes and moments of grace.”
– Rachel Heng, author of Suicide Club

“In these stories Leah Hampton is merciful and merciless as life, as heartrending and as funny and as thought-provoking. This book is both up-to-the-minute and instantly classic, a clear-eyed view of America and Americans for the 21st century.”
– Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway

“Extraordinary and heart-wrenching. These stories ache with the unspoken truths about what it means to be a woman in this world; they are a testament to everything our bodies carry. Through characters who stay with you long after reading, Leah Hampton will demolish your expectations about modern Appalachia, make you laugh, then break your heart. A truly remarkable debut.”
– Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept

“In a voice firmly grounded and unwavering, Leah Hampton writes with an honesty and authority seldom realized so early in a career. These stories are fully matured, raising big questions, providing no easy answers, and leaving us to linger for more. Hampton has staked her claim as a writer to watch and I for one will not turn away.”
– David Joy, author of The Line That Held Us

Available from Henry Holt