About the Author

Kevin Canty lives in Montana.

Reviews

"Given Canty's fondness for the American loner and the lonely landscape of the American West, it's no wonder that his latest novel is set in rural Montana in winter, or that his two principal characters--and ex-Senator's granddaughter and a Native American carpenter--share nothing but a sense of isolation in their respective worlds. Tragedy unites them, and, caught in the narrow judgment of a small town, they are surprised to discover that sometimes solace requires someone else.  --The New Yorker

"Canty's forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of a Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative.  Once he's got you in his thrall, you're  as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate."  --Newsday

"A brilliant second novel that confirms the arrival of a major new talent in fiction."  --Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Having charted the dangerous waters of teenage love in his first novel, Into the Great Wide Open, Canty navigates the more treacherous rivers of midlife romance in this story of an unlikely and destructive coupling. Separated from his heroin-addicted wife, as well as from his adolescent daughter, Marvin Deernose (who is half Indian) has returned to Rivulet, Mont., where he lived as a child. Although life isn't perfect in Montana, Marvin hasn't yet made a mess of his own when, one frigid pre-dawn, he comes upon former U.S. Senator Henry Neihart in his overturned car. Still conscious, the senator extracts a promise that Marvin knows will bring him nothing but trouble. When Marie falls in love with the senator's granddaughter, Justine Gallego, still inconsolable over the death of her son four years earlier, their affair removes them from those who need their attention and drives both toward danger. In Marvin, Canty has created an engaging character whose missteps are only too forgivable. But it's far more difficult to forgive Justine's self-destructiveness, despite her son's death and her self-awareness. Canty's prose soars in the small moments, as when Justine remembers how her son's life filled her own or when Marvin recalls hunting with his father. Yet, while there are these moments of incandescent writing, and certain minor characters spring alive through adroit dialogue, the ending may leave the reader underwhelmed, as though, after all the sturm und drang, there's little consequence in what the characters have endured. Author tour. (Jan.)

"Given Canty's fondness for the American loner and the lonely landscape of the American West, it's no wonder that his latest novel is set in rural Montana in winter, or that his two principal characters--and ex-Senator's granddaughter and a Native American carpenter--share nothing but a sense of isolation in their respective worlds. Tragedy unites them, and, caught in the narrow judgment of a small town, they are surprised to discover that sometimes solace requires someone else. --The New Yorker

"Canty's forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of a Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative. Once he's got you in his thrall, you're as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate." --Newsday

"A brilliant second novel that confirms the arrival of a major new talent in fiction." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune