Pale Harvest

by Braden Hepner

Overview

15 BYTES BOOK AWARD WINNER

"A deeply moving and intellectually profound novel built on the iconic myth of the American West."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

Jack Selvedge works a dying trade in a dead town. When Rebekah Rainsford returns on the run from her father, her dark history consumes him, and she becomes the potential for his salvation, the only thing that might dredge him up from his crisis of indifference. As betrayal and tragedy change Jack's life forever, he discovers a new if nascent hope amid the harshly beautiful western landscape that shaped him. A deeply written and deeply felt story of love, depravity, and shattered ideals, Pale Harvest examines the loss of beauty, purity, and simplicity within the mindset of the rural American West.

BRADEN HEPNER graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009 and now lives in Idaho with his wife and son. Pale Harvest is his first novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937226398
Publisher:	Torrey House Press
Publication date:	09/09/2014
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

BRADEN HEPNER graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009 and now lives in Idaho with his wife and son. Pale Harvest is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

"An unforgettable literary blast…Hepner's characters are among the most compelling in contemporary fiction. Readers will be moved by the author's poetic rendition of the land's unique topography that inflames, confounds, and rarely satisfies one's personal hunger for carving out a meaningful and happy life."
—THE UTAH REVIEW

"At once bleak and pleasingly beautiful, the novel grows true from pain, betrayal, loss, love, and pale salvation."
—15 BYTES

"A dark novel by a deft storyteller."
—HIGH COUNTRY NEWS

"Dazzlingly laconic, making poetry of the sheer sweat and physicality of everyday life in a worn–out landscape."
—LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review

"A meditation on the nature of hope and self–determination, a sweeping elegy to a dying town and to the bond between blood and earth."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

"A deeply moving and intellectually profound novel built on the iconic myth of the American West. Think McMurtry's The Last Picture Show or Horseman, Pass By. A bravura debut."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

"Set in a rugged scrap of Utah, this first novel rings with the hard–scrabble tones of Steinbeck…lush with unusual vocabulary and microscopic detail that combine to evoke a land and a kind of life singular to the American West."
—FOREWORD REVIEWS

"Hepner is a master storyteller, a craftsman of the first order, and a fine new talent. His Western Realism is a refreshing jolt, a throwback to Steinbeck and Stegner with its own stamp of uniqueness."
—ANTHONY SWOFFORD, author of Jarhead

"Hepner's starkly poetic voice leads us into the lives of characters torn between the imagined glories of the infinite and the raw realities of hard labor here on earth."
—SCOTT SPENCER, author of Man in the Woods

From the Publisher

★ 2014-07-31
Hepner debuts with a deeply moving and intellectually profound novel built on the iconic myth of the American West.Think McMurtry's The Last Picture Show or Horseman, Pass By. Hepner's tale is set in the sparsely populated land north of the Great Salt Lake, where the descendants of Mormon pioneers now cultivate the land along a river, in their blood a consciousness of "the wildness of the desert." The nearest town, "a passing-over place," is derelict but for a liquor store and co-op. Jack Selvedge, 21, parents dead a decade, works his grandfather's acreage milking a hard living from 100 dairy cows. Jack's uncle, fragile, often ill, helps only a bit. Jack expects to inherit half the land, but his grandfather betrays that implicit promise. Jack's life grows more complicated when "beautiful…untouchable" Rebekah Rainsford and her mother return, fleeing an abusive father. Comprehending "how tenuous a thing was farming in the desert" and dealing with off-farm opportunities to set out on his own, Jack strides the pages, his unquenchable passion for damaged, fragile Rebekah burning, but he remains rooted in the land, understanding that farming is "the only true salvation he'd ever known." Bitter over his grandfather's duplicity, Jack's love for Rebekah fractures his hardened heart and touches his soul. Other characters—Blair, the widowed, flint-hard grandfather; Seth, a teen seeking the danger of rodeo bull-riding to escape; and especially Jack's best friend, Heber, "a failed promise, a talented squanderer"—range through the narrative with impeccable authenticity. After a second, shattering betrayal, Jack leaves the farm to wander the high desert in a spiritual odyssey. Hepner draws a narrative exploring the existential angst smoldering in the rural West as family farmers who hold stewardship of the land confront social and economic conditions beyond their control. A bravura debut.

Kirkus Reviews