From the Whiting Award--winning writer John McManus comes a debut novel of startling originality and mystery. The son of an unknown father and an ostracized mother, and the next of kin in a long line of bastard relatives, nine-year-old Loren Garland lives a life of subtle mystery beneath the shadow of an East Tennessee mountain. It is on his family's broken-down estate that Loren's imagination grows, and with it, the extraordinary voice of Bitter Milk---a young boy named Luther, who may be Loren's imaginary friend, his conscience, or his evil twin. And yet outside the puzzle of Loren's brain, there are the darker goings-on of his family: his mother, who wishes she were a man; his new uncle, who plans to develop the Garland land into real estate; and his withered grandfather, who holds the clan together through truculence and fear. When his mother disappears, Loren must set out on a quest of his own devising, tossing aside the trappings of youth in order to discover the truth of the world. <BR>Advance Praise for Bitter Milk <BR>"An impressive follow-up to his two striking collections of stories, the brilliant, mordant Bitter Milk consolidates John McManus's place as one of the most powerful and original American writers of the twenty-first century."---Madison Smartt Bell, author of "The Stone That the Builder Refused" <BR>"This mysterious, almost phantasmagoric, debut novel is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper in its precociousness. McManus writes with a wisdom and empathy that belies his youth. Bitter Milk signals the arrival of an important new voice in Southern literature."---Ron Rash, author of" One Foot in Eden" and" Saints at the River" <BR>John McManus was raisedin Blount County, Tennessee. The author of the story collections "Born on a Train" and "Stop Breakin Down," he became the youngest ever recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award in 2000. McManus currently divides his time between Tennessee and Austin, Texas.<BR>

"It's hard not to pity Loren Garland, the chunky nine-year-old Tennessean at the center of storywriter and Whiting Award — winner McManus's (Born on a Train; Stop Breaking Down) affecting but uneven first novel. His callow extended family taunts him about his weight; his resentful single mother, plagued by 'gender dysphoria,' either ignores or dismisses him; and he has no friends at school. He seldom sleeps, and when he does, he suffers from nightmares. And even the imaginary (or ghostly?) Luther, who intrusively narrates the book, and whom the phobic, pusillanimous Loren considers to be his only pal, albeit an invisible one, demeans him: 'You best not die, I said..., they'll have to buy your coffin in the husky section.' When Loren's mother unexpectedly disappears, an aunt and uncle grudgingly take him in while refusing to reveal her whereabouts. Loren's foulmouthed, precociously misbehaved step-cousin, Eli, introduces him to wine, and as the essentially orphaned Loren is forced to become more confident, a real friendship blossoms between the two, as does a relationship between Loren and his maternal grandfather, a writer of dirty songs. Loren humorously interacts with his mulish grandfather and the fractious Eli, but his journey toward self-enlightenment is otherwise unmemorable and sometimes quite unbelievable: Loren's familiar with laws of physics, but can't figure out that his mom's gone to get a sex-change operation. Agent, Jane Gelfman. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)