A mesmerizing literary novel that begins when a boy goes missing—and winds into an obsessive hunt with murderous results.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...

A novel about the remarkable people living on the edge of freedom and slavery, All God's Children brings to life the paradoxes of the American frontier – a place of liberty and bondage, wild equality, and cruel injustice. In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live – and love – as he pleases. That same year, Cecelia, a young slave in Virginia, runs away for the first time. Soon infamous for her escape attempts, Cecelia drifts through the reality of slavery – until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans. In spite of her mistrust, Cecelia senses an opportunity for freedom, and travels with Sam to Texas, where he has a homestead. In this new territory, where the law is an instrument for the cruel and the wealthy, they begin an unlikely life together, unaware that...

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.

When Corporal Elijah Russell's superb horsemanship is revealed during a firefight in northern Iraq, the young Army Ranger is assigned to an elite Special Forces unit preparing to stage a secret mission in eastern Afghanistan. Elijah's task is to train the Green Berets — fiercely loyal to their enigmatic commander, Captain Wynne — to ride the horses they will use to execute this mission through treacherous mountain terrain. But as the team presses farther into enemy territory, the nature of their operation only becomes more mysterious and Wynne's charismatic power takes on a darker cast. Ultimately, Elijah finds himself forced to make a choice: on one side, his best friend and his most deeply held beliefs; on the other, a commanding officer driven by a messianic zeal for his mission. Based on the author's extensive interviews with Green Berets, Army Rangers, and other veterans, this taut page-turner brilliantly fuses the war novel and the Western into a...

Three new stories for men, by three of the most ambitious and talented names in fictionA search for an eight-ball of cocaine, turns into a pistol-whipping and executions in Aaron Gwyn's stunning and disquieting "You and Me and the Devil Makes Three." Gwyn, who was born in Tulsa and raised on a cattle ranch, is the author of the novel The World Beneath and the story collection Dog on a Cross, about which the Boston Globe wrote, "In Gwyn's expert hands, nothing, including good or evil, is ever so simple . . . part Flannery O'Connor, part Shirley Jackson, and wholly original—so brilliantly compelling." This new story is no less shocking and revelatory.In "Young Man Blues," Luis Alberto Urrea introduces us to Joey, the son of a motorcycle gangster tasked with caring for his mother while his dad serves time in Pelican Bay. Packed with rottweilers and German Lugers, roaring car engines and doughnut girls, this story is as riveting and funny as it is affecting. Urrea, a...