With echoes of Demon Copperhead and Plainsong, a poignant story about a troubled boy on the run, an aging rancher, and a woman at a crossroads, who find unexpected solace and kinship in the family they make.
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With his long hair and penchant for guitar, teenage Justin is the spitting image of his idol, Kurt Cobain—a resemblance that has often marked him an outcast. When the long-simmering abuse from his uncle finally boils over, Justin has no choice but to break free, in a violent act that will haunt him, and try to make it on his own as a runaway.
Meanwhile, in rural Montana, Rene Bouchard, a rancher nearing retirement, grieves the recent death of his wife. Her passing has revealed precisely how fractured the family has become—particularly the relationship between Rene and his daughter, Lianne. As old wounds ache anew, father and daughter begin to doubt the possibility of reconciliation, even as they each privately yearn for it.
Justin’s wanderings bring him to the Bouchard family ranch, and soon Rene and Lianne take the boy in as their own. But before long, Justin’s past threatens to catch up with him, jeopardizing not only his new bond with Rene and Lianne but also the home he’s finally been able to claim. With its lyricism, tangible evocation of place, and piercing insight reminiscent of the novels of Barbara Kingsolver and Kent Haruf, The Entire Sky is an unforgettable piece of modern, American fiction.
Praise
Joe Wilkins’s The Entire Sky exposes with strength and poetry the unjust pain of toxic masculinity and the profound damage it wages on children. In these pages a different potential for manhood is turned over and examined, one that allows for gentleness, healing, acceptance, grace. Wilkins gives an exquisite depth to the Montana landscape and to his characters—this is a textured, bloody, and breathtaking book.
-Sharma Shields, award-winning author of The Cassandra and The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac
The Entire Sky is a beautifully written and deeply touching novel about a boy searching for safety and peace, a woman torn between the life she knows well and the new one she and her husband have created, and a man fighting to heal from loss and confronting the passage of time. Each of these characters will stick with me for a long time. I’ll read anything Joe Wilkins writes.
-De’Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
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