The Smoke is me, Burning by Constantine Blintzios, is the story of a family surviving on the edge of a pine forest in Harmswood, Arkansas. Crops have been corrupted by an outbreak of parasites in the rye. Livestock and buzzards alike are dying, so decay is left to spread unchecked. Blake and Jamie Ackerman have grown up on the lip of these woods. Raised by an alcoholic mother and a Vietnam-war veteran uncle, they have grown up believing in gods beyond the chicken-wire fence of their backyard, gods that steal children from their beds. When they are little, Jamie sees something in the woods and blinds his brother in one eye to keep him from seeing it, too. Though the two rely on each other for survival, they grow apart as they grow older. Blake gets away from Harmswood and goes to New York, but Jamie remains. Both continue to be haunted by their shared past, suffering in ways clarified by their surroundings, each finally facing the beasts that served the gods that had tormented them. The Smoke is me, Burning continues the Southern Gothic tradition while re-imagining it at the same time. Themes made familiar by William Faulkner, Cormac continue...