God Says No

“A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. A

revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world.”

--Steve Martin, author of "Shopgirl" and "Born Standing Up"

"James Hannaham's GOD SAYS NO introduces a groundbreaking new American

voice: a writer of spectacular sentences who has trained his sights on a

world that has hardly been touched by literary fiction. Topical and

ambitious, disturbing and hilarious, GOD SAYS NO is everything a person

could ask of a first novel — and twice that much. "

--Jennifer Egan, author of "Look at Me" and "The Keep"

"This novel is an absolute original. Gary Gray's search for wholeness and

acceptance is a heartfelt (and often very funny) plea for all men (and

women) to be embraced just as they are. A wonderful debut."

--Martha Southgate, author of "Third Girl From The Left"

“GOD SAYS NO is a book that was desperate to be written but well out of

reach. And then James Hannaham came along and wrote it, with the kind of

care, wit, sympathy and fury that the book deserved. Imagine Candide…—

okay, imagine Candide as a black man, a southerner, a Christian

fundamentalist, middle-class, obese, married, a father, and utterly, even

profoundly gay.

If a comedy, in the classical sense, is a story then ends in a

marriage, and a tragedy is a story that ends with a death, then what do you

call a book that ends with a split and a resurrection? A truly daring first

novel, and something to read.”

--Jim Lewis, author of "Why the Tree Loves the Ax"