Wiley Cash

His fourth novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is expected to be published in 2021.

His 2017 novel The Last Ballad is a fictionalized version of the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, centered on the murder of activist and musician Ella May Wiggins. He was drawn to the subject by the fact that its history had been seemingly forgotten despite its close proximity to his own family and hometown; his parents both grew up in nearby milling communities, and his mother's maiden name was Wiggin. He also took inspiration from music of the 1920s and 1930s thanks to his friendship with members of the string band Old Crow Medicine Show. New York Times reviewer Amy Rowland praised the novel's blend of fact and fiction, saying "Cash vividly blends the archival with the imaginative. .... Cash, with care and steadiness, has pulled from the wreckage of the past a lost moment of Southern progressivism."

In 2016, he became writer-in-residence at UNC-Asheville, his alma mater. He previously taught at Southern New Hampshire University.

Cash's 2012 debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, a thriller with Southern Gothic elements which follows the destructive wake of a deceptive snake-handling faith healer, was positively reviewed by The Washington Post and other national publications. It was named one of the 100 most notable books of 2012 by the New York Times, which called it "mesmerizing".

Cash also contributed an essay to the 2009 book This Louisiana Thing that Drives Me: The Legacy of Ernest J. Gaines.

His second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, tells the story of two young girls who are thrown together with their estranged father, a washed-up baseball player. It is set during the 1998 home run battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Chicago Tribune reviewer Hope Reese praised Cash's "knack for flow and dialogue" but said that the story felt rushed and underexplored. Washington Post reviewer Ron Charles felt that This Dark Road to Mercy was overly predictable and flat in comparison to Cash's debut.

Wiley Cash (born September 7, 1977) is a New York Times best-selling novelist from North Carolina. He is the author of three novels, A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy, and The Last Ballad. His work has won numerous awards, including the Southern Book Prize twice, and the Crime Writers' Association's CWA New Blood Dagger and Gold Dagger.