Amor Fati follows Frederick, a restless teenager whose reckless punch lands him in hot water with Horatio Dark-a man tied to the shadowy underworld. Driven by his all-consuming passion for the enigmatic Lilac, Frederick tumbles into a maze of corruption and dangerous alliances, all while confronting the possibility of fatherhood and his own wavering moral compass.
Desperate to clear his name and protect Lilac, Frederick pinballs between questionable allies: a lawyer more eager to collect fees than save his client, a crooked judge demanding under-the-table payouts, and the menacing Mr. Dark, Horatio's father, whose offers of "help" come with high-stakes consequences. With every choice, Frederick finds himself further entangled in debt and deceit.
Lilac, harboring her own desires and secrets, both captivates and confounds Frederick, compelling him to propose marriage even as the truth about her pregnancy remains murky. Torn between loyalty and self-preservation, Frederick fights to hold onto the idea of a better life-an upscale apartment, a fast car, and the love he craves-while everything he's built teeters on the brink of collapse.
In a world ruled by ambition and backroom deals, Amor Fati crackles with moral ambiguity, driving readers to question how far they might go for the person-and the life-they want most. Jack Smith's gripping narrative thrusts us into a feverish drama of obsession and consequence, challenging us to decide who, if anyone, can be trusted when every path forward seems a step deeper into the widening darkness of the abyss.
Jack Smith has an MA in creative writing and PhD in English. He has published six novels and four works of nonfiction. His most recent novels are If Winter Comes (2020), RUN (2020), Miss Manners for War Criminals (2017), Being (2016), Icon (2014), and Hog to Hog, which won the 2007 George Garrett Fiction Prize and was published by Texas Review Press in 2008. He has published stories in numerous literary magazines, including Southern Review, North American Review, Texas Review, Xconnect, In Posse Review, and Night Train. His reviews have appeared widely in such publications as California Review of Books, Ploughshares, Georgia Review, American Book Review, Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, Pleiades: Literature in Context, the Missouri Review, Xconnect, and Environment magazine. He has published several dozen articles in both Novel & Short Story Writer's Market and The Writer magazine. His creative writing book, Write and Revise for Publication: A 6-Month Plan for Crafting an Exceptional Novel and Other Works of Fiction, was published in 2013 by Writer's Digest Books. A collection of his articles is available in Inventing the World: The Fiction Writer's Guidebook to Craft and Process. His latest nonfiction book is Contributions to Literature: A Tribute to Small Press Books. His coauthored nonfiction environmental book entitled Killing Me Softly was published by Monthly Review Press in 2002.
