Genre: Adventure / Rural Fiction / Coming of Age
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: June 16, 2020
Number of Pages: 304 pages
Scroll down for the giveaway!
After an attempted horse theft goes tragically wrong, sixteen-year-old Caleb Bentley is on the run with his mean-spirited older brother across the American Southwest at the turn of the twentieth century. Caleb’s moral compass and inner courage will be tested as they travel the harsh terrain and encounter those who have carved out a life there, for good or ill.
Wealthy and bookish Randall Dawson, out of place in this rugged and violent country, is begrudgingly chasing after the Bentley brothers. With little sense of how to survive, much less how to take his revenge, Randall meets Charlotte, a woman experienced in the deadly ways of life in the West. Together they navigate the murky values of vigilante justice.
Powerful and atmospheric, lyrical and fast-paced, All Things Left Wild is a coming-of-age for one man, a midlife odyssey for the other, and an illustration of the violence and corruption prevalent in our fast-expanding country. It artfully sketches the magnificence of the American West as mirrored in the human soul.
PRAISE for All Things Left Wild:
“A debut full of atmosphere and awe. Wade gives emotional depth to his dust-covered characters and creates an image of the American West that is harsh and unforgiving, but — like All Things Left Wild — not without hope.” — Texas Literary Hall of Fame member Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen
“James Wade has delivered a McCarthy-esque odyssey with an Elmore Leonard ear for dialogue. All Things Left Wild moves like a coyote across this cracked-earth landscape—relentlessly paced and ambitiously hungry.” — Edgar Award finalist David Joy, When These Mountains Burn
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“Revenge isn’t real. You can’t buy coffee with it. It won’t warm your bed at night. And killing only leads to more killing.”
All Things Left Wild is James Wade’s fantastic debut novel that is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s style in The Border Trilogy, especially All the Pretty Horses. Wade’s novel is beautiful and bloody and full of love and loss and greed and vengeance.
This story is ultimately about two men whose life-changing confrontation leaves murder and revenge in its wake. Fate brings Randall Dawson and Caleb Bentley together, but choices keep them forever linked: one on the run and the other on the hunt. Both are good men who tumble into bad situations, but fate must take its course, and All Things Left Wild is a persistent journey of redemption, retribution, and atonement for sins of both commission and omission. Across the wilds of Texas, All Things Left Wild is about two men who find themselves on the path of self-discovery and growth, one transitioning from life as an outlaw to an honest existence and the other from being too naive in a harsh world to falling into the dark abyss of single-minded revenge. The ending collision between these two men is sedate and inevitable and yet heartbreaking in all that has been lost in both body and soul.
James Wade presents an unbelievably beautiful novel that will no doubt cause the reader to pause for a moment or two and reflect on the folly of greed, foolhardiness, and the pursuit for retribution that leaves a trail a blood and broken hearts and broken bodies. Wade’s novel provokes deep thought through poetic prose and main characters who wax and wane philosophical as they ponder their choices, their fates, and their place in such a lawless world filled with men who take and kill and take some more. The point of view switches between first person with Caleb and third person with Randall, perhaps to show the parallel yet quite different paths these two men follow: one toward light and personal forgiveness and the other toward darkness and detachment, both destined to cross paths once more. The other characters that orbit both Caleb and Randall are fully developed and have unique personalities. I am especially drawn to the old woman who shelters Randall and his small band of followers from a winter storm. This woman is full of sass and spunk and interesting ideas: “Every man to ever walk this earth has been kept alive only by the patience and practicality of a woman.”
All Things Left Wild is a literary showcase that may not appeal to those readers who want non-stop action without any philosophical meanderings, but one thing is certain. This story will burrow deep and make you contemplate how quickly life can change based on rash decisions that often lead to death and self-destruction until nothing is left but regrets and a life filled with shadows.
Enter the giveaway below on or before June 28, 2020, for a chance to win a signed copy of All Things Left Wild by James Wade.
I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.
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Excellent review — you really whittle it down to what the story is about, at its very core. I am so impressed with so many aspects of the book. Thanks for the post.
Thanks! I really love this type of literary fiction!