"'You set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner,' Pamela had
said, but that was wrong: you set yourself up as angel, and await the
word of God." Luther Redding lost his job, and almost lost his wife,
Pamela, and teenaged daughters Katie and Lucy, when the real estate
bubble burst in Florida. Now he pilots a Reaper drone over the
mountains of Afghanistan from a command center in the bowels of
Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, studying a target's pattern of life
and awaiting the command to end that life. Meanwhile Bobby Rosen has
returned home from his tours in Iraq to a broken marriage and an
estranged son, his promising military career cut short in a moment of
terrible violence in a Sadr City marketplace. As the tales of Luther
and Bobby unfold, Mark Powell masterfully engages with the vexing,
bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who
are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the
life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.
As Bobby sets off on a drug-fueled road trip with his brother Donny,
newly released from prison and consumed by his own inescapable
impulses, a sudden death in the Redding household sends Luther's
daughter Katie spiraling into grief and self-destruction. Soon the
lives of the Reddings and the Rosens intersect as the collateral
damage from the war on terror sends these families into a rapid
descent of violence and moral ambiguity that seems hauntingly familiar
to Bobby while placing Katie in a position much like her
father's—more removed witness than active participant in the bloody
war unfolding in front of her. Overarching questions of faith and
redemption clash with the rough-hewn realities of terror and loss, all
to explosive ends in Powell's dark vision of modern Americana.
Novelist Ron Rash has deemed Powell "the best Appalachian novelist of
his generation." In this, his fourth novel, Powell broadens the
southern backdrop of his earlier work into a sprawling thriller taking
readers from the Middle East to Charleston, southern Georgia, Tampa,
Miami, New Orleans, and into the storied American West. In its themes,
perspectives, and pacing, _The Sheltering_ recalls the work of Robert
Stone, Jim Harrison, and Ben Fountain while further establishing
Powell as a unique voice capable of interrogating unfathomable truths
with a beauty and cohesion of language that challenges our assumptions
of the human spirit.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781611174359
Publisert
2014
Utgiver
Vendor
University of South Carolina Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter