The Winner with That Unexpected Twist
This collection of powerful stories, by the
ex-Mormon Shawn Vestal, was called a "slam-dunk debut" that
"casts a cinematic shadow on the American West" by O
magazine last year. This year, it won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for
Debut Fiction. Why you'll love it? The
mix of everyday people struggling through everyday life (e.g,, a teenager
seduced into robbing houses with his father) and fantastical fiction (e.g., a
heaven with a cafeteria that serves every meal you ever had in your life). Or,
as the O magazine reviewer wrote, "The doubters in
these stories lose religion, but find that 'nothing that happens has to be
real, and anything is possible.'"
