Twisted Tree - Couverture souple

Praise for The Work of Wolves: ALA Alex Award (2005)Minnesota Book AwardMountains and Plains Booksellers Association Award "It's a little too big, a little too beautiful, and it jumps all over the place, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Kent Meyers's new novel is the kind of book that demands and rewards fierce loyalty.... I instantly fell under its spell and have been eager to find other people who will love it ever since." -- Christian Science Monitor "THE WORK OF WOLVES is a compelling read, much like the South Dakota sky I fondly remember -- so big, so bright and so beautiful." - Des Moines Register "The novel's fine characterizations, crisp dialogue and fully realized sense of place make The Work of Wolves compelling." -The Denver Post "A deeply felt tale of family ties and reverence for the land . . . . Should find a readership well beyond regional collections." --Library Journal "An expansive novel of great emotional depth, The Work of Wolves is an experience that evokes South Dakota's great wilderness and the spirit of those who make their living from the land."-- curledup.com "Meyers, imaginative and equally attuned to uniqueness and universality, awakens sorrow, compassion, and wonder in this vivid, covertly metaphysical, and viscerally dramatic novel of tragic cultural legacies, personal valor, and boundary dispelling revelations." --Booklist (starred review) "Masterful detail of life on the Plains. . . . Superb dialogue." --Kirkus Reviews "This story of horses, love, and life, set in a South Dakota border town, is one of the most wonderful reads I've had in a long time. It features compelling and beautiful writing throughout. I found it hard to put down, as I went back again to reread paragraphs just one more time." - BookSense Recommendation "The Work of Wolves is the best western-based fiction I’ve read since Lonesome Dove and Plainsong." --Howard Frank Mosher "The Work of Wolves is quietly, majestically elegiac. In Kent Meyers’ deft hands, detail activates imagination; time slows, then expands to create a lyric space in which motive is turned and turned again on the lathe of insight." --Judith Kitchen, author of The House on Eccles Road Praise for Kent Meyers: "Intelligent and intuitive--a very promising writer." --Peter Matthiessen "Written with simple, poetic dignity and a savvy for the land that can only come from having been raised up in it with eyes wide open." --Sam Shepard Praise for The River Warren: "An insightful inspection of local life and its discontents. . . " --The New York Times Book Review "Entertaining and brilliantly written. . . As stunning in its use of language as it is touching in its human revelations." --The Denver Post "Somewhere between the weight of Faulkner and the ease of Kesey, Kent Meyers brings to American fiction a tenaciously gripping story that moves with the subtle subterfuge of an aging river current .... The River Warren is a seductive and dark tale that closes with a welcome sense of light and fulfillment." --ForeWord

Hayley Jo Zimmerman is gone. Taken. And the people of small-town Twisted Tree must come to terms with this terrible event—their loss, their place in it, and the secrets they all carry.

In this brilliantly written novel, one girl’s story unfolds through the stories of those who knew her. Among them, a supermarket clerk recalls an encounter with a disturbingly thin Hayley Jo. An ex-priest remembers baptizing Hayley Jo and seeing her with her best friend, Laura, whose mother the priest once loved. And Laura berates herself for all the running they did, how it fed her friend’s addiction, and how there were so many secrets she didn’t see. And so, Hayley Jo’s absence recasts the lives of others and connects them, her death rooting itself into the community in astonishingly violent and tender ways.

Solidly in the company of Aryn Kyle, Kent Haruf, and Peter Matthiessen, Kent Meyers is one of the best contemporary writers on the American West. Here he also takes us into the complexity of community regardless of landscape, and offers a tribute to the powerful effect one person's life can have on everyone she knew.