The World Beneath: A Novel - Hardcover

Gwyn, Aaron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393067238 ISBN 13: 9780393067231

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009

Synopsis

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 heart, about the after effects of war, violence, faith, and random acts of devotion.

About this title

About the Author:

Aaron Gwyn’s fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. His first book, Dog on the Cross, was a finalist for the 2005 New York Public Library Young Lions Award. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

From Publishers Weekly:

Two mysterious occurrences anchor Gwyn's uneven first novel (after a collection, Dog on the Cross): an outcast half Chickasaw/half Mexican boy named J.T. goes missing in smalltown Oklahoma and a strange hole appears in the yard of Hickson Crider, a veteran of the first Gulf War. The thread that pulls the two story lines together is Sheriff Martin, whose investigation into J.T.'s disappearance is slow out of the gate. As for the seemingly bottomless hole in Hickson's yard, it could be an abandoned well, a sink hole, a tunnel to an underground city built by Chinese immigrants or the doing of a Plains Indian incarnation of Satan. Secondary characters—like the sheriff's wife, who spends her pregnancy building model airplanes, or Hickson's neighbor—are compelling though never fully realized, and the supernatural elements don't get much traction. Gwyn is a talented writer working with a compelling premise, but in this novel, the pieces don't fit together. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0393067238
• ISBN 13: 9780393067231
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 213