Lions: A Novel - Softcover

Nadzam, Bonnie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802124909 ISBN 13: 9780802124906

Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat, 2016

Synopsis

Bonnie Nadzam—author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning debut, Lamb—returns with this scorching, haunting portrait of a rural community in a "living ghost town" on the brink of collapse, and the individuals who are confronted with either chasing their dreams or—against all reason—staying where they are.

Lions is set on the high plains of Colorado, a nearly deserted place, steeped in local legends and sparse in population. Built to be a glorious western city upon a hill, it was never fit for farming, mining, trading, or any of the illusory sources of wealth its pioneers imagined. The Walkers have been settled on its barren terrain for generations—a simple family in a town otherwise still taken in by stories of bigger, better, brighter.

When a traveling stranger appears one day, his unsettling presence sets off a chain reaction that will change the fates of everyone he encounters. It begins with the patriarch John Walker as he succumbs to a heart attack. His devastated son Gordon is forced to choose between leaving for college with his girlfriend, Leigh, and staying with his family to look after their flailing welding shop and, it is believed, to continue carrying out a mysterious task bequeathed to all Walker men. While Leigh is desperate to make a better life in the world beyond the desolation of Lions, Gordon is strangely hesitant to leave it behind. As more families abandon the town, he is faced with what seem to be their reasonable choices and the burden of betraying his own heart.

A story of awakening, Lions is an exquisite novel that explores ambition and an American obsession with self-improvement, the responsibilities we have to ourselves and each other, as well as the everyday illusions that pass for a life worth living.

About this title

About the Author:

Bonnie Nadzam has published fiction and essays in many journals and magazines, including Granta, Harper’s Magazine, Orion Magazine, The Iowa Review, Epoch, The Kenyon Review, and many others. Her first novel, Lamb, was recipient of the Center for Fiction’s first novel award in 2011,and was longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. It has been translated into several languages and made into a film that will be released in 2016. She is also co-author with Dale Jamieson of Love in the Anthropocene (OR Books, 2015).

Review:

PRAISE FOR LIONS

Haunting . . . Nadzam weaves ghosts, myths, longing, and an aching American landscape into a fascinating fable about the lengths we go to for the people we love.” Royal Young, Interview

[A] story of haunted histories and broken promises.” O, The Oprah Magazine, a Must-Read Book of the Summer

An evocative novel of place, set on the brooding frontier . . . [Nadzam] conveys both the reckless certainty of youth and its accompanying lurch of dread.” Christian Science Monitor

Nadzam’s knack for powerful storytelling establishes the mystery of this dying town as a truly American fairy tale, while her unforgettable characters elevate the legend to an introspective meditation on love, loyalty, and ambition.” Booklist

[A] memorable novel . . . Nadzam weaves a strange and mesmerizing story.” Publishers Weekly

"Some authors produce. Product. As if without ever touching it. Others rip out a piece of themselves from their deeeeep cardiopulmonary region and give to us a quirky thumping live thing. You did that, Bonnie Nadzam. Thank you!" Carolyn Chute, author of Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves

"From the very first sentence of this masterfully crafted and pitch perfect novel, Bonnie Nadzam takes us on a journey of loyalty, ethical decisions and layered family histories. Ghosts of the past, of story, of place, of the future collide with a desperate haunting melancholy." Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas

"Here comes Lions: a glittering dust storm, spinning every fantasy of the West, of small town America, together with the truth of a set of lives as real and precise as our own. Sweep us, up, Bonnie Nadzam, we are all yours." Ramona Ausubel, author of No One is Here Except All of Us and A Guide to Being Born

"Set in a rural heartland town so close to death its few remaining residents mingle with ghosts, Lions is a wonderfully original and unsettling novel about the stories we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, and the dreams we all cling to in this place called America. Bonnie Nadzam crafts novels the way born storytellers spin yarns around the campfire, her patient, hushed voice drawing us ever closer until she's convinced us of the impossible." Mike Harvkey, author of In the Course of Human Events

"Like some of the characters in the beautifully wrought and haunting Lions, I too have been torn between leaving the place where I was born and raised and moving elsewhere always imagining greener pastures, so to speak. If I could write a story even half as gorgeous and alive as Nadzam's novel about familial loyalty and shattered dreams, I'd die a happy man." Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time

"I'm so haunted by this beautiful, mesmerizing book, by its stories of ghosts and those living among them, by its suspense, its mystery, its atmosphere. Nadzam depicts these stark landscapes with a poetic sweep, with grit, with elements of the fantastical that are stunningly, vividly real." Timothy Schaffert, author of The Swan Gondola

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0802124909
• ISBN 13: 9780802124906
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288