Current Year's Books

Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison 

Teenage Jessilyn, motherless since birth and suddenly fatherless, too, abandons her family's ranch in 1885 to find her outlaw older brother, Noah. So limited are Jessilyn's possibilities as a girl that she disguises herself as a man for the journey west, a transition made smoother by her ace shooting skills. Larison gifts Jess with a strong voice to narrate her own story: "I ain't never been the kind to pity myself, ain't no profit in it." Jess' treacherous mission brings out survival instincts that are barely stronger than her horror over the brutality it requires. When she, as Jesse Straight, is hired as a guardsman for a powerful governor with a personal vendetta against Noah, Jess' identities could collide in a dangerous way; and if she finds him, will Noah even see his little sister in her anymore? Larison (Holding Lies, 2011) writes the novel's many action scenes with restraint, and adds considerations of race, class, and religion to Jess' realizations about gender. Larison's western epic has wide appeal and is already in development for film. 

James: A Novel by Percival Everett
James is a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion are shown in a radically new light. 

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes an epic novel about a man fixated on finding a missing woman and the FBI agent on his tail, who might be even more obsessed than he is. 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another. A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.