“This strange brew of a book…is shot through with magical realism and undergirded by a naturalist’s concern for Mother Earth—and it’s all wrapped in lovely sentences. Book groups will have field days discussing this.”

“By turns magical, harshly realistic, poetic, aggravating, and enthralling.”

“Fabulous and engrossing, both faithful to the real-world details of central Texas and wildly imaginative…Dinan’s storytelling flows as forcefully as a flash flood in this spellbinding first novel…An extraordinary novel.”

“Proof that the finest American novelist of her generation has taken the stage. Wayson Dinan has created characters so real we can’t help but fall in love with them.”

“In this myth-like journey, the earth comes alive, the past breaks its bonds, and a girl who understands the deepest griefs of strangers sets out on a desperate search to save a friend.”

“In this astonishing debut novel, dream and dread and hope braid into a single, unforgettable tale. It washes away old boundaries and creates a world that is new, slightly menacing, and thrilling.”

“Precise and full-hearted, reverently attentive to the natural world, and woven through with subtle magic. Like the cataclysmic storm that sets this book in motion, Wayson Dinan’s stunning debut will carry readers clean away.”

“A harrowing descent into a central Texas underworld. Wayson Dinan’s novel will drown you with beauty and grief.”