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Bloomland
Current price:
$26.95
Publication Date: September 10th, 2019
Publisher:
Dzanc Books
ISBN:
9781945814938
Pages:
192
Usually Ships in 3 to 8 Days
Englehardt’s stunning debut is not for the faint of heart; within the first few pages, a shooting occurs in the library of a fictional southern college. But the story is less about this horrific event than it is about the period leading up to it, and what happens to three different people — a student, a professor, and the shooter himself — in the aftermath. In prose that is vivid, specific, and wildly original, Englehardt shows how grief, disillusionment, and, in some cases, resilience take his characters’ lives in surprising directions. This is SO good.
September 2019 Indie Next List
Description
Winner of the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction
Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novel Award
A Kirkus Best Books of 2019 pick
An Indies Introduce pick
A September Indie Next pick
Hugely important, hauntingly brutal--Englehardt has just announced himself as one of America's most talented emerging writers. --Kirkus starred review
Bloomland opens during finals week at a fictional southern university, when a student walks into the library with his roommate's semi-automatic rifle and opens fire. When he stops shooting, twelve people are dead.
In this richly textured debut, John Englehardt explores how the origin and aftermath of the shooting impacts the lives of three characters: a disillusioned student, a grieving professor, and a young man whose valuation of fear and disconnection funnels him into the role of the aggressor. As the community wrestles with the fallout, Bloomland interrogates social and cultural dysfunction in a nation where mass violence has become all too familiar.
Profound and deeply nuanced, Bloomland is a dazzling debut for fans of Denis Johnson and We Need to Talk About Kevin.
