All That Ends Well Is Not

Certain common factors distinguish the greatest Southern lit. And to my reading, Wallace's novels check off nearly all the boxes.

One is character development. He conjures up oddball protagonists with great flair. Edward Bloom, the hero of his first novel Big Fish, twists every ounce of juice from the stories of his life, making himself a character of, as the book's subtitle says, "mythical proportions." Edsel Bronfman, the "junior executive shipping clerk" of Extraordinary Adventures, believes to his soul he can find a female companion in a hurry, because he must. If he fails, he cannot claim the only prize he's ever won — a free weekend in a condo in Destin. Couples only. Or Henry Walker from Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, who as a boy makes a deal with the devil to become a master of legerdemain, just like Mississippi's Robert Johnson traded his soul to play the blues.

Two is humor. Every Daniel Wallace novel will make you laugh, repeatedly and loudly.

And three is heart. No book of Wallace's I've ever read has failed to move me. Love sits at the core of all his work.

His latest volume and the first that isn't fiction, This Isn't Going to End Well, has a larger-than-life central character who loves and is loved deeply. The humor is there, too, but is in shorter supply, because this book's central character, Wallace's true-life brother-in-law William Nealy, loses his lifelong battle with depression, walks into the woods with a gun, and kills himself.

Nealy had been Wallace's hero since they met when Daniel was only twelve years old. Ten years after Nealy's suicide, Daniel found hidden boxes full of his brother-in-law's journals and discovered that his hero, who had always presented himself as invincible, was anything but.

This Isn't Going to End Well hits bookstores on Tuesday, and we're happy to devote all of Salvation South to it this week. We begin with my interview with Daniel, coupled with an essay from the author himself about his experience of writing the book and an excerpt from the book's first chapter, so you can begin your reading before you buy the book on Tuesday.