Raincoast Books

What Will You Read Next?

Shotgun Lovesongs

A Novel

9781250039811

St. Martin's Press
Available: 03/11/14
6.42 x 9.36 · 320 pages
9781250039811
CDN $29.99 · cl
With dust jacket

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Nickolas Butler

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Impressively original." - The New York Times

"Sparkles in every way. A love letter to the open lonely American heartland… A must-read." - People

"The kind of book that restores your faith in humanity." - Toronto Star

Welcome to Little Wing.

It's a place like hundreds of others, nothing special, really. But for four friends - all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town - it is home. And now they are men, coming into their own or struggling to do so.

One of them never left, still working the family farm that has been tilled for generations. But others felt the need to move on, with varying degrees of success. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit, and one of them even hit it big as a rock star. And then there's Beth, a woman who has meant something special in each of their lives.

Now all four are brought together for a wedding. Little Wing seems even smaller than before. While lifelong bonds are still strong, there are stresses - among the friends, between husbands and wives. There will be heartbreak, but there will also be hope, healing, even heroism as these memorable people learn the true meaning of adult friendship and love.

Seldom has the American heartland been so richly and accurately portrayed. Though the town may have changed, the one thing that hasn't is the beauty of the Wisconsin farmland, the lure of which, in Nickolas Butler's hands, emerges as a vibrant character in the story. Shotgun Lovesongs is that rare work of fiction that evokes a specific time and place yet movingly describes the universal human condition. It is, in short, a truly remarkable book - a novel that once read will never be forgotten.

"

NICKOLAS BUTLER was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His writings have appeared in: Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review Online, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, he currently lives in Wisconsin with his wife and their two children. Shotgun Lovesongs is his first novel.