From an assured new voice in American fiction, a magnificent and moving first novel about a boy coming of age in the American heartland
A ferociously talented US author makes his debut with Bear Tooth - part wilderness odyssey, part literary chase, here is a literary novel that delivers pure entertainmentAugust is an average twelve year old - he likes dogs and fishing, and doesn't even mind early morning chores on his family's farm. When his parents' marriage falls apart and he has to start over in a new town, he tries hard to be an average teen - playing football and doing his homework - but he struggles to form friendships, and when a shocking act of violence pushes him off course once more, he flees to rural Montana. There, as he throws himself into work on a ranch, he comes to learn that even the smallest of communities have secrets and even the most broken of families have a bond. Beautifully written and unfolding against an epic American landscape, August is a compelling, authentic and poignant story of the joys and traumas that irrevocably shape us all.
Wink has a precise, clear prose style...The landscape is a character in itself - well-known, but changeable... Wink skilfully imbues his writing with a subtle sense of foreboding that never leaves... In this tightly controlled yet highly unpredictable novel we discover what it is like to come of age in a part of America that is always changing, always the same * Guardian *
Callan Wink [...] reconfigures the landscape of the American West * Irish Times *
Spun from the raw earth of the American heartland, August is a bruised and elegant poem to belonging. Wink's precise prose, tender and savage, make him a master of broken things -- Karl Geary
August is the rural coming of age that so many of us experience but so rarely see in print. Callan Wink has a voice like Annie Proulx's; he lands every detail with concrete authenticity and every emotional moment with tangible feeling -- Rae DelBianco, author of * Rough Animal *
The unsentimental education of a farm boy from Michigan, August wastes no words. It reads like early Hemingway, retooled for the present. Work, pain, weather, violence, the bitten-off curse of American masculinity-you'll find yourself praying for the redemption of its laconic, damaged, wonderful, still very young hero -- William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of * Barbarian Days *
August is an exceptional coming of age story.Callan Wink is too wise and empathetic a writer to ever allow his readers easy judgments as we follow his memorable young protagonist on his precarious way through adolescence. An outstanding debut novel and worthy follow up to Wink's widely praised collection of stories -- Ron Rash, author of * The Risen *
Callan Wink's characters are as real and vivid as if they'd stepped into your living room, uninvited, to tell their stories. His style is as clear, precise, and starkly poetic as the young Hemingway's, but with an more droll sense of humor. This book is simply super-a deft, beautiful, deeply engaging read -- Brad Watson, author of * Miss Jane *
While Wink gives his characters room to breathe, this stealthily engrossing novel never feels pressure-less, with a steady crackle of tension as August steers his perplexed path through a crossfire of expectations regarding what it means to be a man... quietly brilliant * Daily Mail *
Beautifully understated -- Books of the Year * Daily Mail *
ISBN: 9781847088109
Dimensions: 216mm x 135mm x 18mm
Weight: 391g
304 pages