My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People

Caradoc Evans turned his merciless eye on the Welsh chapel-going communities that shaped him, and the result is a collection that scandalized Wales upon its 1919 publication. These stories pierce the veneer of piety to reveal the petty cruelties, simmering resentments, and naked ambitions that fester beneath Sunday smiles. A preacher wields his congregation like a weapon. Neighbors destroy each other with gossip and guile. Fathers and daughters circle each other in battles of will and love. Evans writes with a satirist's precision: every hymn sung with gusto, every prayer offered up, every handshake in the chapel yard carries the weight of what's unspoken. The prose is spare, sharp, and often very funny in the way that only deep truth can be. This is not the Wales of rolling hills and warm community. It's the Wales of people who know each other's sins and use them. For readers who crave fiction that unsettles rather than comforts, these stories remain bracingly alive.