God’s Country

“Mr. Everett is successful combining heart with rage. . . . The novel sears.”—David Bowman, The New York Times Book Review

This ‘comic and fierce’ novel spoofs the classic Western format with the dark, incisive humor we’ve come to expect from the acclaimed National Book Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of James

One of the earliest works anchoring Percival Everett’s illustrious career, God’s Country is by turns funny, shocking, and devastating. The unlikely narrator through this tale of misadventures is one Curt Marder: gambler, drinker, cheat, and would-be womanizer. Unfortunately, he’s a coward. When he sees a band of “Injun impersonators” pillaging his home, he has “half a mind to ride down that hill and say somethin’, but it was just half a mind after all.” It’s 1871, and he’s lost his farm, his wife, and his dog to a band of marauding hooligans. With nothing to live on but a desire to recover what is rightfully his, Marder enlists the help of the best tracker in the West: a Black man named Bubba.

With an introduction from renowned novelist Madison Smartt Bell, this is the perfect edition to add to your growing Percival Everett collection. As NPR’s Michael Schaub noted, “It’s impossible to predict what the next Everett book will bring, but it’s always a safe bet that it’s going to be great.”