BACKLIST

"Pieta is a true and generous wonder of a novel. In sharp, beautifully written prose, William Zink takes on big themes - love and devotion and family and death - and makes us all the better for it."

DONALD RAY POLLOCK, author of Knockemstiff

Jim Priest's mother is dying. With his daughter beside him, he alternates caretaking duties with his sister. A year earlier his father died in a mysterious fashion—the head of the Virgin Mary from a lifelong sculpting project of The Pieta fell on top of him, killing him instantly. As days pass by, his mother falling in and out of coherency, the buried secrets of a bittersweet childhood re-emerge, forcing the four of them to accept, if not fully resolve, the limitations of their bonds. Pieta is a story about personal ambition, the anguish of unrequited affection, and the redemptive spirit of a young girl. In concise, elegant prose, William Zink examines the singular, yet universal, forces tugging at the hip of a family in the midst of its most epic chapter.

"William Zink's Ohio River Dialogues is. . . Not quite a novel. Not exactly a play. Not a stream of seemingly disconnected stories that somehow magically intertwine perfectly at the end. Instead, he presents us with a hybrid of these, and what emerges is revolutionary. Indeed, Zink might soon be credited with creating a new form of literature."

THE MAIN STREET RAG

Set in the summer of 2002 after 9/11, as the U.S. government considers war with Iraq, an ex-hippie, two software dropouts, and a Steady Eddie convene for a weekend of fishing, drinking, and fraternal debate. Pandora's Box opens wide for the unadulterated, unedited sparring of ideas and fraternal dominance. Four men go at it, leaving no white elephant unidentified, permitting no unclothed emperor to pass without howls of laughter, and no bounds of propriety left uncrossed. The collective soul of a nation is mirrored in the bumbling, boasting, beautiful voices of four ordinary men. Ohio River Dialogues is Huck Finn with some ganja in his pocket, a Gibson over his shoulder, and world destruction in the back of his mind. . . times four.

"Is this the start of that much-needed social realist fiction? Perhaps. Zink is one hell of a writer..."

ANDREI CODRESCU

"It is tight and beautiful and glazed with the good kind of sweat."

DAVID GIFFELS, Akron Beacon Journal

Set in the sultry underbelly of Charleston, South Carolina, this workingman's tale introduces Lorne, an overqualified grunt at the local nursery. College educated, he labors in the shadows of Charleston's pastel mansions, dreaming of a way out. The strain caused by his entrapment pushes Lorne toward fits of despair and excruciating loneliness. His only refuge is his free-wheeling, somewhat depraved imagination. Whether cruising the beaches on the back of his friend's motorcycle or confiding in his only true friend, Reggie, as they discuss life's unpredictable hand, Lorne clings to a belief in his own survival and finds meaning in the most unexpected places.

"This first work is a surprising and unlikely treasure from an author using a surprising and unlikely pseudonym. The citizens of Cowopolis are up in arms: Theo Usurper, the owner of the Bovines football franchise, is going to move the team to another city if he can't acquire a tract of land controlled by Jerry Wrigdd. Jerry is a dreamer and a poet who has recently lost his one true love, and he has no intention of selling the land for what he considers to be an ignoble distraction. Usurper, frustrated by Jerry's failure to confront reality, has a charge of treason brought against the poet, for what can be more un-American than denying fans a few hours of diversion with their favorite team? The trial begins, and Jerry has his dark night, but he emerges finding both love and a new sense of purpose that will transform not only him, but the rest of the city as well. Highly recommended."

BOOKLIST