Murder ends a sibling rivalry and ignites a manhunt in this “stirring narrative of hostility, pursuit, and the desire for vengeance” (Kirkus Reviews). When Silas Van Loy flees home on horseback to avoid capture for his brother’s murder, he is followed by both the police and his brother’s wife, Lena, who is intent on exacting revenge. She reluctantly lets her trusted stable assistant join her in a journey across the wilds of Northern California in the hopes of catching Silas for one final showdown. Stansel follows the chase and shares the story of the brothers’ rise from hardscrabble childhood to their reign as the region’s preeminent horse trainers, tracking the tense sibling rivalry that ultimately leads to the elder’s death . . . A “fast-paced, moving narrative in which family loyalty is tested, broken, and redeemed in unexpected ways,” The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo will satisfy fans of Kent Haruf, Charles Portis, Molly Gloss, and Smith Henderson, and establish Stansel as a new voice in this grand tradition (BookPage). Praise for The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo “One of the most compelling novels I’ve read in a long time.” —Eowyn Ivey “Shares the trail with the likes of Edward Abbey, Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry.” —Craig Johnson, New York Times–bestselling author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries, the basis for the hit show Longmire “In his forthright, beautifully rendered first novel, following the PEN/Bingham Prize-winning story collection Everyone’s Irish, Stansel limns the murderous tension between two brothers, showing how families can fracture for mysterious reasons. . . . Stansel has written a captivating novel, elegantly spare in language but big in purpose.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Following his acclaimed debut novel, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo, the eleven stories of Ian Stansel's Glossary for the End of Days explore today's cultural and political climate with a disarming blend of speculation and realism. Whether faced with tragedy, approaching disaster, or an all-too-familiar uncertainty, Stansel's protagonists--siblings, lovers, executives, drifters--reveal complex and often startling turns of mind, surprising themselves as well as the reader. In Boulder, a man calls into a radio program with an altered tale of his brother's murder--and faces the consequences when the story goes viral. In Tampa, a woman attends a convention of people believing themselves to be targets of clandestine government agencies. In Houston, a family with many secrets attempts to escape an oncoming tropical storm. In an East Coast college town, a professor has a charged run-in with a young woman from the radical right. And in Iowa, a cult suicide spurs the lone survivor to create a "glossary" in an effort to come to terms with his experience. Simultaneously gritty and lyrical, grounded and visionary, Glossary for the End of Days gives us characters grappling with how to push on through dark days and dark times. This arresting, relevant collection tunes into and seeks to illuminate shared anxieties about the present--and future--of our world.
A fearless and fiercely intelligent story collection which captures the Midwest better than any writer since Jonathan Franzen or Stuart Dybek, and announces the arrival of a major new talent.
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