Aaron Gwyn - Böcker

One cold November morning in Perser, Oklahoma, Sheriff Jerry Martin receives a disturbing call: a local fifteen-year-old has disappeared. The boy, J.T., who is half Mexican, half Chickasaw and has been raised by his grandmother, is known for starting trouble. Sheriff Martin sets out on a fevered search, determined to find J.T., even as the hunt reopens wounds from a traumatic event in his past. In a seemingly parallel but ultimately intersecting story, Hickson Crider, a veteran of the first Iraq war, discovers a mysterious crevice, perfectly round and seemingly bottomless, in his backyard. The hole becomes Hickson’s obsession—and an ominous clue in Sheriff Martin’s investigation.Aaron Gwyn’s perceptive, quietly beautiful prose is “reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor” (Kirkus Reviews), engaging us in a tale that is both savage and burning with heart, about the after effects of war, violence, faith, and random acts of devotion.

A man miraculously survives a fall from the eighth floor of a drilling rig but is ever after plagued by an unwillingness to live. A preacher loses his ability to speak in tongues and begins to fake it. A young man is intent on suppressing his sinful love for his best friend even though he can think of nothing else. A teenage boy struggles with the temptation of a young girl. A grandmother will stop at nothing to make her grandson famous. These are some of the good citizens of Perser, Oklahoma. And in Aaron Gwyn's debut collection, the people of Perser are unpredictable and unforgettable as they struggle with lapses into sin during the week a young faith healer comes to town. In his careful articulation of faith and doubt, sin and self-delusion, allegiance to the church and self-glorification, Gwyn reveals himself as a writer of great heart and complexity, creating a world that burns with pain, love, and an odd kind of devotion.