Twilight (2006) Signed First Edition Reference

Twilight was published by MacAdam/Cage in 2006, Gay’s third and darkest novel. The book follows two teenagers who discover that the local undertaker, Fenton Breece, has been stealing from and desecrating corpses. Their attempt to expose him triggers a violent chain of events that tests the limits of evil in a small Tennessee community.

The Book

Twilight is Gay’s most explicitly noir novel — a thriller that operates within recognizable genre conventions while maintaining the literary prose and moral complexity of his earlier work. The villain Breece is one of the most memorably repulsive figures in contemporary Southern fiction, and the teenagers’ journey from innocence through horror to a hard-won survival gives the novel a moral arc that transcends genre.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: MacAdam/Cage, San Francisco Publication date: 2006 Format: Hardcover in dust jacket

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition, fine/fine: $100–$300
• Inscribed copies: $150–$450
• Unsigned first edition: $20–$50

The MacAdam/Cage edition is moderately scarce as a small-press publication. Twilight appeals to crime fiction collectors as well as Gay’s literary following.