“Sweeps the reader up into a fascinating, Oz-like whirlwind of language.”

“Artistically impressive and emotionally satisfying, a serious work that heads off in exhilarating directions.”

“Sweeps the reader up into a fascinating, Oz-like whirlwind of language.”

–San Francisco Chronicle

“Wise and beautifully written.”

“Artistically impressive and emotionally satisfying, a serious work that heads off in exhilarating directions.”

“Sweeps the reader up into a fascinating, Oz-like whirlwind of language.”

–USA Today

“Artistically impressive and emotionally satisfying, a serious work that heads off in exhilarating directions.”

–The New York Times Book Review

Gabriel's Story

When Gabriel Lynch moves with his mother and brother from a brownstone in Baltimore to a dirt-floor hovel on a homestead in Kansas, he is not pleased. He does not dislike his new stepfather, a former slave, but he has no desire to submit to a life of drudgery and toil on the untamed prairie.

So he joins up with a motley crew headed for Texas only to be sucked into an ever-westward wandering replete with a mindless violence he can neither abet nor avoid–a terrifying trek he penitently fears may never allow for a safe return.

David Anthony Durham is a genuine talent bent on devastating originality and Gabriel’s Story is as formidable a debut as we have witnessed.